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Edited on Sat Jun-02-07 10:29 PM by Divernan
I have 3 grown kids and they each spent a lot of time abroad during their college years and in their 20's. One did her entire undergrad degree abroad; another spent a year in the Indonesian rain forest, as well as remote areas of India & Africa. Another lived a summer in Germany. I am a very strong advocate of young people spending time in a foreign CULTURE, not just briefly visiting a country.
However, absent one-on-one chaperones, I wouldn't place 13 year olds at the risks one must be prepared for in traveling to another country. For an example, a lot of 13 year old girls dress in such a way that they can pass for being 18, i.e., adult. In a lot of foreign cultures, such dress is the mark of a street walker. This can result in some sexual encounters/approaches which 13 year olds are not prepared to handle. And just because the kids would be staying with teachers' "family members" does not insure that there are no horny brothers/cousins/uncles/neighbors on the scene. Are the family members getting paid for providing room and board? That would raise a red flag with me about the program. I wouldn't let my kids at 13 stay overnight with families I did not know, whether in the US or elsewhere.
Even with a group of excellent chaperones, I think that third world countries are risky because of their low level of medical care, and high level of endemic diseases, such as malaria. Third world countries currently have outbreaks/epidemics of Cholera, Typhoid Fever, Rift Valley Fever, Malaria, Mumps, Measles,Meningitis, Hepatitis A & E, Dengue Fever, encephalitis, paralytic polio, rabies and spider bites. Several of these diseases are spread through mosquito bites. I wouldn't count on 13 year olds to use enough DEET daily on both clothing and skin to protect themselves. "EEEWWWW, it smells gross", "it feels icky" or "it makes my skin break out."
Chaperone: "Heather, did you put insect repellent all over your clothing and skin?"
Heather: "Oh yes, Mrs. Smith" ("not").
In the event of an emergency, medical care may be unavailable or substandard.
Another risk is the language barrier. If visiting a country where one doesn't speak the langauge (unlike Spanish students going to Spain, and I mean more fluency than looking up phrases in a guidebook), a kid could get in a lot of trouble if they were somehow separated from the group and unable to communicate with the locals.
A friend of mine recently spent two weeks with a volunteer USA group which is involved in building a medical clinic about 30 miles outside the capitol. Ghana was so bankrupt/impoverished some years back that its basic infrastructure, including hospitals and medical clinics, collapsed. Having nowhere to work, most of their medical staff emigrated to places like the UK and the US. One such Ghana MD, an oncologist, now based in Illinois, funded and headed the group building the clinic.
My friend had to get a boatload of innoculations before making the trip. About 2 months after he returned, he had a severe attack of diverticulitis, requiring immediate surgery and a 5 day hospital stay. He commented he'd probably have died if this had happened to him in Ghana.
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