The Exchange programme offers a unique opportunity for groups of young people to meet. The exchanges have a pedagogical, informal learning aim and value and the groups explore common themes and learn about each other’s cultures. Exchanges can take place between countries participating fully in the programme and with certain other countries. Exchanges can involve youth groups from two or more countries.

AFSAI has been working since 1958 in the field of intercultural education and it is active with both long and short-term exchanges. It is a non-profit NGO and we develop long-term and short-term exchanges with both European and non-European partners. The structure of AFSAI is based on the voluntary work of its members: the majority of them are youngsters who have participated in one of the programs proposed by the association and carry out their voluntary work on a voluntary basis. The local chapters of AFSAI co-operate with the National Co-ordination Office in Rome, which strictly co-operates with the Board of Managers of the Association.

The majority of the activities promoted by AFSAI refer to three main areas:

• in the sphere of intercultural education, through international youth exchanges;

• to the development and consciousness of European Citizenship through programs and projects in the frame 
  of European Youth Programs;

• generally to the sector of youth mobility and national, European and international voluntary youth service.

AFSAI has already organized and developed different youth activities under the Youth for Europe Program and the European Voluntary Service Program. Through this activities we try to give our members the possibility to have intercultural experiences in Italy and abroad and to offer this possibility also to youngsters that because geographical or economical difficulties have not easily access to these experiences.

Participants in our activities are usually young people involved in AFSAI at local level and who have never had the opportunity to participate in an international activity. So far, we have mostly worked with students, unemployed, people with disabilities, youth workers and young people living in disadvantaged areas.

One of the aims of the exchange activities organized by AFSAI is to offer participants the opportunity to have a direct experience in the preparation, organization, realization and evaluation of a project. For participants it is important to live for a few days in a multicultural atmosphere, letting them the possibility to show the main aspects of their own culture, sharing all kind of information and experiences. This will help them, for sure, in their personal development in the future. We also believe in the importance of the multiplying effect that every activity has in the sense of involving new young people in other youth activities.