Sister Cities encourages exchanges of all kinds – Adult, cultural, arts, academic, and sports exchanges between the two cities including this successful program:

High School Student Ambassador Program:  A student exchange program!

The U.S. State Department underwrites and supports SCI and uses the organization as a recruiting tool for bright young minds. They award one-year scholarships to fifty deserving young people across America every year who have gone through a local chapter’s high school exchange program and excelled in immersing themselves in another language and culture. These U.S. State Department scholarships are available to graduating high school seniors through their language teachers.

The high school student exchange is a “family-to-family” free exchange, in that no fees are paid to Fresno Sister Cities for a student’s inclusion in the program. Volunteers take no money for their work. This is truly an “all-volunteer” grassroots program to allow as many students to participate as possible.