"Families are discouraged to make contact with their children" What sort of exchange program is this? Why would any parent ever agree to an exchange program that would discourage them from contacting their 17 year old for 6 months?

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I'm embarrassed as a citizen of this country to have tried this Egyptian family in the press, with so little information coming from their side. I'm disgusted that mention of a lawsuit by the parents accompanied the first news items. Here we have a kid, who is just months short of attaining adult status in the eyes of the law. What are his responsibilities for his own health, even at age 17? They are immense. We would expect him to know not to have unsafe sex, not to drive while under the influence, and to loudly ask for help if he was not getting proper nourishment. The fact is, this child had a facebook and myspace presence, and was constantly in touch with his friends back home--though not his parents obviously. Egypt is a place where one can get food from a street vendor for pennies, shop at mini-marts, or eat American-style fast foods. If you think I believe he never dined out with his friends, I do not. I'm angry we are being taken for a ride by this kid and his parents. They have deleted his previously public internet accounts of his Egypt experience, and now they have made his other internet presence private. I visited his myspace page before it was made private, and my impressions of him and his friends lead me to believe it is ludicrous to believe he could not acquire "anything under the sun" in Egypt. We are being hoodwinked, misled, and preyed upon by this family. I hope responsible journalism will show eventually that there is much more to this picture that has been told so far.

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Ok, I was an AFS volunteer in Egypt When i Lived their and AFS laws doesn’t force their students to stay in a specific family and they allow you to change your family if you don’t like your family or if you where badly treated and this is not done by AFS Egypt only but this is an International AFS Law, which my brother changed his family during his year program in the USA. and McCullum could have asked AFS Egypt to change his family because they don’t offer him food, which i think they would do in the same day if they had evidence and buying food in Alexandria is the easiest thing you can do and you can also buy all kind of food their. what i think is that McCullum is not saying the truth, also Egyptians are very kind people and most of the people visited can feel this and that means if your family don’t offer you food you can eat at your friends home. and the funny thing is that no one starves in Alexandria or all Egypt even poor people. and i think if i were hosted in poor African Countries by a poor family which doesn’t offer me food i can still eat and not starve.
McCullum: you should say the truth.

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He was given an option to leave but wanted to stick out the year even though he was concerned about his weight? Sounds like he shouldn't be allowed out of the house alone. As for as little as possible contact between parents and child, what parent would agree to that?

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We were a 'Host Family' for 6 years with various Student Exchange programmes, and were always amazed at the lack of concern that some of these organisations had about their students. We usually hosted girls, 16 to 17 years old, as we had 2 boys who preferred host 'Sisters' to brothers. No Police checks were ever made on my Husband, who could have been a Sex Offender for all they knew! One girl had a severe eating disorder when she arrived, (all she would eat, once a day, was boiled courgettes with a teaspoon of Tuna mixed in) which we were not told about. Despite repeatedly calling the Co-ordinater about our extreme concerns and her continued weight loss, we got no help from them. The Coordinater did not even come to see her, let alone seek medical attention and in the end, when the poor girl had got down to under 7 stones (she was 5ft. 8ins) we had to insist that the Organisation collected her as we could no longer be held responsible.
Another girl,who came to us from another host family, (a single woman who had never had children) had been very badly treated. She had only been allowed one shower a week, (the Host Mum explained to me that electricity was expensive and then complained that Allexis 'smelled!'!)all food was monitored and she had to stay in her room after 8pm in case she disturbed the cat. When I went to the womans house to collect her, the Host Mum also told me that the girl was a THEIF! When I asked what she had stolen, she told me that she had seen her take an apple from the fruit bowl! We had Allexis for a year and she was a lovely girl who still visits us. Do the organisations really care who hosts the children?
And YES, it is true that students are NOT allowed to telephone their families with some Organisations. They are allowed to write letters, but not to call them. I am afraid that we broke this rule and allowed them to phone home whenever they liked as we felt that it was unfair. They were only 16 and homesick for goodness sake. 10 mins spent TALKING to Mum helps a lot more than a 20 page letter ever could! They say that they are NOT profit making organisations, but where does all the money go? Most programmes, including AFS pay NOTHING to the hosting family - you do it for the love of the job - the Education and Medical care is FREE in the UK, and yet the Students we had had all paid over £6000, (11,000 dollars) some paid a lot more!
We stopped hosting for AFS and others and now host privately. If there is a problem, we can now sort it out directly with the student and their Parents. This is far better than trying to sort it out with a coordinater who is not interested.

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