The Light - An Alumni Publication Fall 2014 | Page 2

Rachel’s Story
In 1951, motivated by a desire to help heal the
wounds of World War II, Rachel Andresen brought
German teenagers to live with American families
for a one-year cultural and educational immersion.
Out of this early initial effort, she founded Youth
For Understanding (YFU,) a non-profit, international,
educational high school student exchange program.
More than 250,000 students have been on
an exchange in the more than six decades since
1951. Rachel’s pioneering work in youth exchange
during the 1950s made this experience possible for
young Germans and provided the impetus for this
later expansion. By 1960, programs were available
for European, Asian and Latin American students.
Today, YFU has expanded to include partners in
more than 60 countries who provide opportunities
for teenagers to live and learn about other cultures
during a formative period in their lives.
Rachel’s work in the field of international
youth exchange earned her a Nobel Peace Prize
nomination in 1973. She was also cited as one
of the “founding five” of international citizen
exchanges. In his 1985 book, Bring Home the
World, author Stephen Rhinesmith (past president
of American Field Service), dedicated his book, “To
Rachel Andresen, Dwight Eisenhower, William
Fulbright, Stephen Galatti and Donald Watt, whose

collective vision of the possibilities of international
exchanges have enabled hundreds of thousands of
us to bring home the world.”

Amsterdam, 1948, was the impetus
behind Rachel’s life work toward international
understanding. Honeymooning with her husband in
Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, she was
overwhelmed by the devastation caused by the war,
and particularly struck by the lack of hope among
the youth. The couple went on to Amsterdam, where
the first post-war World Conference of the World
Council of Churches took place. Rachel attended
the conference sessions in Amsterdam, playing a
part in a grand ceremony in which the city lights
of Amsterdam were turned on for the first time after
World War II. She said that the sudden illumination
of the entire city was so impressive she vowed to do
everything she could with her life “so that the lights
would never go out again.”
- Text adapted from YFU Founders’ Day memoir.
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