ayusa.org

Lack of respect and communication

I was an Ayusa exchange student a while back, and let me tell you that this is the worst communication I’ve ever experienced with an organization. When I was placed in the US, I had a hard time connecting with people, I’ll be honest. Once it got better after a month or so, someone who goes over the evaluation conversations of Ayusa, sent MY MOM an email telling her lots of things that I’ve been doing wrong and claiming other things while they never contacted me first about it. Saying that I wanted to quit cheer for no reason, that I made my hostmom sit in the backseat, had no interests in my host family and other exchange student who lived next to me, that I closed myself off in my room and that I was being dramatic over a 15 min car drive (I can get panic attacks in small places, so that’s why. Even a 5 min car drive gave me a panic attack when I was there). Mind you, they have never emailed me first to confirm this all, they straight up emailed my organization and mother first. What a lack of communication and respect. I had to receive their email through my mom too. It actually made me so upset that I emailed back to explain everything, while I still think they should’ve contacted me first if they wanted to make these fake claims about me to make my people at home worry. Everything that was said in their email wasn’t true and never heard of, so I gave them the truth about everything and explaining everything they said I was doing. And they NEVER apologized. The lady who sent out that email later came to our place, and I’ll be honest, I was a little cold towards her. Genuinely because she didn’t apologize for making false claims and not contacting me about it first. It was brought up that I sometimes made my host mom late for school (never heard about this before, so also my host moms fault for not telling me it was a real issue. I apologized for it though.) and the lady from Ayusa jokingly said that if she were my host mom, she would’ve kicked me out immediately. She made more comments like that, so that’s also why I was being cold towards her. I was younger back then, but I still realize this isn’t how you treat your own exchange student. I wouldn’t recommend this organization to anyone, there’s a lot of other organizations that actually do make their own exchange students their number 1 priority. Ayusa failed me, and they never apologized to me for it. I’m not someone who leaves reviews at all, but I really wouldn’t want anyone to experience what I experienced because it messed me up so bad I left the US earlier to go back home. Be very picky and careful with your organizations.

Date of experience: Oct 11, 2024