The Kansas City Star

Some of Fadi Oulad-Hsain's classmates at Blue Valley High School wanted to know if the Moroccan exchange student had ever seen a tiger. He is from Africa, after all.

Turns out he has. At a zoo.

"It's all good," Oulad-Hsain says with a laugh, effortlessly throwing out American slang.

The 17-year-old is one of 375 students from predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia who are living this year in U.S. homes as part of the Youth Exchange and Study Program. Congress established the exchange program in October 2002 after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to bridge cultural divides between Muslims and Arabs and the U.S. The U.S. State Department pays for the program, which will cost about $23 million this year.

The idea is to dispel myths about the Muslim world through relationships built by teens. In the Kansas City area, Oulad-Hsain and two other teens live in homes in the Blue Valley School District.

The three teens are willing ambassadors for their countries and their Muslim faith—and they plan to take home tales of being welcomed by their American peers and host families with mostly benign misconceptions of their native countries.

For instance, Oulad-Hsain's classmates had a hard time grasping that he was from Africa. They assumed Morocco was mostly desert, but Oulad-Hsain lives in a hilly, lush tourist area. Some were surprised to learn that Muslims believe in Moses, just as Christians do.

Ashwaq Al Yahmadi of Oman was afraid she wouldn't make friends, because before she left home, her dad warned her that Americans think all Muslims are terrorists. Aside from one boy who asked her if she was a terrorist, her experience has proved her father wrong. She has made friends and loves how inviting her classmates have been.

"Most of them didn't think that about me at all," Al Yahmadi said.

As a member of the Blue Valley Northwest Diversity Club, she participated in an overnight lock-in at the school, where students deepened their appreciation for each other's cultures.

"They asked me a lot about my country," Al Yahmadi said. "'Do you drive cars or ride camels? Do you have computers? Restaurants? McDonald's? Movies?' I told them, 'Just because I'm Middle Eastern and from a country you've never heard of doesn't mean we don't have technology and aren't like everybody else,' " she said. "I told them, 'We have everything you guys have, and it's the same.'"

They talked about terrorism and the stereotype. She bonded with her classmates and made friends.

"It was really nice, really good," she said.

That's just the type of interaction the program is hoping for. When Al Yahmadi goes home, she will be able to tell her dad that no, Americans don't think we're all terrorists and they didn't hate me, said David Beiser, the YES Program director.

Another legacy of the program comes from its community service mandate. Each student must do 30 hours of community service while here and then more when they go home. In many of the participating countries, community service is not a core value as it is in the U.S., Beiser said.

One group of former exchange students was cleaning up a beachfront in Tunisia when local villagers asked what was going on. The townspeople were so impressed with the answer that they started cleanup days, Beiser said.

Jamilah Shumi, 16, especially loves the community service part of the YES Program. The Bangladesh native has given at least 70 hours of her time to various charities around the area.