Dear colleagues,

As I have been travelling and in vacation for most of the summer, hence
away from my e-mail, it is a long time since I got in touch with most of
you ! I have a special request to make. A good friend of my son Sebastien
is in the process to go to UK for one year with an organisation called ASSE
International (it stands for Association for swedish students exchange, an
originally swedish organization which turned international and helps to
organize a year of study abroad for students across the world). For
Sebastien's friend, the goal of the year is to learn English and to live a
different experience after finishing high school here. The organisation is
supposed to find a family for the student to live in but it seems that in
UK, this is much more difficult than in many other countries. Indeed, the
departure date for UK is in a couple of weeks (september 1 actually) and it
seems that no family has yet been found for Sebastien's friend. He thus
asked me to activate my contacts in order to help out the search process.

The bottom line is this: the host family should be interested in lodging
and feeding a student free of charge for the academic year (from september
to June) in exchange for small services (babysitting, minimal house work,
etc.) provided by the student who has to study in the public school system
of the host country ; in some countries, it seems that ASSE provides a
minimal compensation to the family but I do not know if this applies to UK.
Sebastien's friend name is Julien Fontaine; he is 17, has french as his
mother tongue with minimal command of English, is a very open minded and
resourceful guy with very good grades in school and strong interests in
music and sports. He would have to study at A-level in Britain. But for
that, he is very flexible about where in UK he would go. If by any chance
you know a family who would be interested in hosting him, please let me
know their name, adress, phone number, etc. We would forward them to ASSE
to help them out in their seach and ASSE would most likely contact the
family in the days to come as time runs fast !!!

Please do not hesitate to post and/or circulate this request to people you
find appropriate. I hope that you will be able to help us in this most
interesting adventure in international exchanges and that you will not find
abusive this use of the health promotion listservs I have posted it on
(sorry for cross-postings ! ). After all, is not opening someone to another
culture and country a truly health promoting experience !


Une tres bonne journee.

Michel O'Neill, Ph.D.

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Professeur titulaire et Codirecteur, Groupe de recherche et d'intervention
en promotion de la sante (GRIPSUL), Ecole des Sciences infirmieres,
4108-J Pavillon Comtois, Universite Laval, Quebec, Qc, Canada, G1K 7P4.
tel: +1-(418)-656-2131 #7431; telecopieur: +1-(418)-656-7747
Courrier electronique: [log in to unmask]

Codirecteur, Centre quebecois collaborateur de l'OMS pour le developpement
de villes et villages en sante / Quebec WHO Collaborating Center for the
development of healthy cities and towns,
2400 D'estimauville, Beauport, Qc, Canada, G1E 7G9.
tel: +1-(418)-666-7000 #461; telecopieur: +1-(418)-666-2776
Courrier electronique:[log in to unmask]
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