Guidelines - Responsible Exchange and Volunteering 2018

Typical home hosting challenges:

I. Living & integration - participants need to be made aware that they come to integrate into a project with all of its strengths and weaknesses. Their role is no t to “forc e ” their own cultural values and beliefs onto the host family (male/female relationship, religion, vegetarianism etc) but learn, share and appreciate diversity. II. Comfort zone – despite best intentions, many participants will not settle into home hosting as it is just too big a gap from their comfort zone. This is a very difficult and sensitive issue to deal with and there is no one solution fits all. Sometimes time resolves this, other times it may be necessary to move a participant (be aware this is a very sensitive area to work in and it is easy to offend host families who are doing everything they can to be good hosts). III. Cultural incompatibilities – some participants will never settle in some situations where the cultural gap is in severe conflict with their own. Pre-arrival preparation, attention to applicant detail and knowledge of the hosting family can, to a certain extent, be used as a mechanism for best-match of participant to home. This is, however, time consuming and therefore costly to the host organisation. Other aspects such as patriarchal family structures which may lead to male participants being treated better/differently to female participants, or expected household roles and responsibilities of the participant in the family living environment may be different; highlight there may be different perceptions of “ownership” – things might be borrowed without permission etc. IV. Safety – while every attempt is made to ensure participants are placed in safe hosting environments, it will emerge at times that there is risk associated to a specific house or area and this must be addressed.

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