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07-17-2009, 03:16 AM
By DREW GRIFFIN and KATHLEEN JOHNSTON, CNN
SCRANTON, Pa. (July 15) -- They came from around the world hoping to spend a high school year immersed in the culture and joys of America.
Instead, five young foreign exchange students found themselves caught in a nightmare of neglect, malnourishment and abandonment by those supposed to protect them.
Now those five -- natives of countries stretching from Norway to Tanzania to Colombia -- are back home telling friends of a different America than they expected. And their brief visit reverberates in America as a United States senator demands accountability and reform, a Pennsylvania district attorney seeks criminal charges and the U.S. State Department concedes it failed to protect kids coming to America.
"We at the Department of State recognize [because we] are responsible for this program we have to make sure we are aggressively overseeing this program and make sure children are well-suited," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
"This is a program that is very important to the Department of State," Crowley said. "We are talking 15- to 18-year-old children. We are introducing them to the United States. We are trying to put our best foot forward. We recognize in this incident in Scranton and also elsewhere around the country we have failed to do so."
What happened in Scranton, according to Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Andrew Jarbola, is a crime. He has convened a grand jury to look into the families where some of the 12 students who came to Scranton were placed, as well as the company who placed them there and its officials.
"Well, in my opinion they were treated kind of crudely," Jarbola said. "Not provided the proper food, hygiene and things of that nature. And the areas they were placed? I know one of the students was placed in a home with a convicted felon -- convicted of drug trafficking or drug offenses -- and that is very disturbing to me."
Jarbola said some students were so malnourished that one was treated in a hospital for dehydration while another passed out during track at school.
"They weren't provided with food," Jarbola said. "In fact there is one incident with tape on food items in the refrigerator of the host family that says, 'Do not touch. This is for the host family only.' So basically they were neglected."
The company that placed the students first denied any problems existed, then said it had corrected them and fired those responsible. The families who housed the students say the allegations are untrue. But the students themselves tell a different story.
'It Was Nothing Like I Had Envisioned'
The San Francisco-based Aspect Foundation sponsored all 12 of the Scranton students, some of whom were on State Department grants. On its Web site, the Aspect Foundation says it began in 1985 as "a small non-profit organization offering affordable study-abroad opportunities to students from around the world," and now "students live with volunteer host families in more than 350 communities throughout the United States."
In 2008, the State Department gave 17 placement groups $39.4 million in taxpayer funds to manage programs involving exchange students. Aspect received $1.08 million of those funds.
Carlos Villarreal's family, however, paid their son's way to America from Colombia, giving Aspect $13,000 for him to study here. Villarreal said he lived with a family that housed ex-convicts and that he had very little to eat. He said his mother's repeated contacts with Aspect about his situation were ignored.
"I lost a lot of body weight, and [it was] an unsafe environment which I felt uncomfortable living in, and it was nothing like I had envisioned my experience in America," he said.
The Rev. Elmer Smith told CNN he took in Villarreal as a favor to Aspect's local coordinator, Edna Burgette, and denied he failed to feed him.
"The boy had no place to go, so I took him in and I fed him," Smith said. "He had a television in his room, he had heat in his room, he had air-conditioning in his room."
Another woman who hosted students said she was sitting on her porch when Burgette walked by and asked her if she would take in a child. Like Smith, the woman said that she was just trying to help a student whom she was told had nowhere else to go.
Jarbola said a girl from Norway, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Anne, tried to alert officials that she and some of the students were in dire straits.
Anne told CNN she had school officials send an e-mail to Aspect in October explaining how bad things were and including photographs of the inside of the home where she was placed. The home was later condemned by the city.
Anne's high school principal took her in, but other students weren't as lucky and spent nearly the entire school year in unsafe homes, until Children and Youth Services was tipped off about a month before school ended, Jarbola said.
Jarbola, who said Anne's e-mail is now evidence in the criminal investigation, told CNN that when welfare officials interviewed the students, one was so hungry he wept when they gave him pizza during questioning. In all, five of the students were removed from homes where they'd been placed by Aspect.
Sponsoring Agencies Asked to Police Themselves
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pennsylvania, said the situation sickened him.
"I'm the father of four daughters," he said. "I would never want my daughter nor would any parent want their daughter or son exposed to these kinds of conditions anywhere, but especially when you're in a foreign country. And in this case the United States was this foreign country."
Aspect gave conflicting responses to CNN.
Vivian Fearen, its executive director, did not return calls seeking comment. Her Pennsylvania public relations firm issued a statement blaming the Scranton problem on Burgette, who was fired once the allegations surfaced in the Scranton media.
Burgette also did not respond to repeated attempts by CNN for comment.
Later, however, Aspect issued a statement through the public relations firm.
"Based on their own investigation and verification from county children and youth officials, Aspect Foundation was led to believe that none of their students in northeastern Pennsylvania was abused, malnourished or dehydrated," said Karen Walsh, public affairs director for the Neiman Group.
But the statement also said Aspect "fully acknowledges that what happened in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was deplorable and in complete violation of their own strict standards and those of the Department of State's Exchange Visitor Program."
"Aspect Foundation has corrected the problems; terminated or accepted the resignations of those who were responsible for them; and established new policies and procedures to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again," Walsh said.
Walsh said the Lackawanna County Children and Youth Services agency reported no Aspect students in Scranton required medical attention and only three were relocated. In addition to Burgette's firing, Walsh said, two other supervisors resigned.
Continued...
SCRANTON, Pa. (July 15) -- They came from around the world hoping to spend a high school year immersed in the culture and joys of America.
Instead, five young foreign exchange students found themselves caught in a nightmare of neglect, malnourishment and abandonment by those supposed to protect them.
Now those five -- natives of countries stretching from Norway to Tanzania to Colombia -- are back home telling friends of a different America than they expected. And their brief visit reverberates in America as a United States senator demands accountability and reform, a Pennsylvania district attorney seeks criminal charges and the U.S. State Department concedes it failed to protect kids coming to America.
"We at the Department of State recognize [because we] are responsible for this program we have to make sure we are aggressively overseeing this program and make sure children are well-suited," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley.
"This is a program that is very important to the Department of State," Crowley said. "We are talking 15- to 18-year-old children. We are introducing them to the United States. We are trying to put our best foot forward. We recognize in this incident in Scranton and also elsewhere around the country we have failed to do so."
What happened in Scranton, according to Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, District Attorney Andrew Jarbola, is a crime. He has convened a grand jury to look into the families where some of the 12 students who came to Scranton were placed, as well as the company who placed them there and its officials.
"Well, in my opinion they were treated kind of crudely," Jarbola said. "Not provided the proper food, hygiene and things of that nature. And the areas they were placed? I know one of the students was placed in a home with a convicted felon -- convicted of drug trafficking or drug offenses -- and that is very disturbing to me."
Jarbola said some students were so malnourished that one was treated in a hospital for dehydration while another passed out during track at school.
"They weren't provided with food," Jarbola said. "In fact there is one incident with tape on food items in the refrigerator of the host family that says, 'Do not touch. This is for the host family only.' So basically they were neglected."
The company that placed the students first denied any problems existed, then said it had corrected them and fired those responsible. The families who housed the students say the allegations are untrue. But the students themselves tell a different story.
'It Was Nothing Like I Had Envisioned'
The San Francisco-based Aspect Foundation sponsored all 12 of the Scranton students, some of whom were on State Department grants. On its Web site, the Aspect Foundation says it began in 1985 as "a small non-profit organization offering affordable study-abroad opportunities to students from around the world," and now "students live with volunteer host families in more than 350 communities throughout the United States."
In 2008, the State Department gave 17 placement groups $39.4 million in taxpayer funds to manage programs involving exchange students. Aspect received $1.08 million of those funds.
Carlos Villarreal's family, however, paid their son's way to America from Colombia, giving Aspect $13,000 for him to study here. Villarreal said he lived with a family that housed ex-convicts and that he had very little to eat. He said his mother's repeated contacts with Aspect about his situation were ignored.
"I lost a lot of body weight, and [it was] an unsafe environment which I felt uncomfortable living in, and it was nothing like I had envisioned my experience in America," he said.
The Rev. Elmer Smith told CNN he took in Villarreal as a favor to Aspect's local coordinator, Edna Burgette, and denied he failed to feed him.
"The boy had no place to go, so I took him in and I fed him," Smith said. "He had a television in his room, he had heat in his room, he had air-conditioning in his room."
Another woman who hosted students said she was sitting on her porch when Burgette walked by and asked her if she would take in a child. Like Smith, the woman said that she was just trying to help a student whom she was told had nowhere else to go.
Jarbola said a girl from Norway, who asked to be identified only by her first name, Anne, tried to alert officials that she and some of the students were in dire straits.
Anne told CNN she had school officials send an e-mail to Aspect in October explaining how bad things were and including photographs of the inside of the home where she was placed. The home was later condemned by the city.
Anne's high school principal took her in, but other students weren't as lucky and spent nearly the entire school year in unsafe homes, until Children and Youth Services was tipped off about a month before school ended, Jarbola said.
Jarbola, who said Anne's e-mail is now evidence in the criminal investigation, told CNN that when welfare officials interviewed the students, one was so hungry he wept when they gave him pizza during questioning. In all, five of the students were removed from homes where they'd been placed by Aspect.
Sponsoring Agencies Asked to Police Themselves
U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pennsylvania, said the situation sickened him.
"I'm the father of four daughters," he said. "I would never want my daughter nor would any parent want their daughter or son exposed to these kinds of conditions anywhere, but especially when you're in a foreign country. And in this case the United States was this foreign country."
Aspect gave conflicting responses to CNN.
Vivian Fearen, its executive director, did not return calls seeking comment. Her Pennsylvania public relations firm issued a statement blaming the Scranton problem on Burgette, who was fired once the allegations surfaced in the Scranton media.
Burgette also did not respond to repeated attempts by CNN for comment.
Later, however, Aspect issued a statement through the public relations firm.
"Based on their own investigation and verification from county children and youth officials, Aspect Foundation was led to believe that none of their students in northeastern Pennsylvania was abused, malnourished or dehydrated," said Karen Walsh, public affairs director for the Neiman Group.
But the statement also said Aspect "fully acknowledges that what happened in Scranton, Pennsylvania, was deplorable and in complete violation of their own strict standards and those of the Department of State's Exchange Visitor Program."
"Aspect Foundation has corrected the problems; terminated or accepted the resignations of those who were responsible for them; and established new policies and procedures to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again," Walsh said.
Walsh said the Lackawanna County Children and Youth Services agency reported no Aspect students in Scranton required medical attention and only three were relocated. In addition to Burgette's firing, Walsh said, two other supervisors resigned.
Continued...