Abroad Program Has Photos of Its Own
AFS is defending itself against a teen's starvation claim on an Egypt exchange.
Feb. 29, 2008— -- The first photos most people saw of Josh McCullum showed the 97-pound teenager in a Maine hospital room, where he spent two weeks after his arrival home from a fall study abroad trip to Egypt.
His host family, Coptic Christians who fast 200 days of the year as religious tradition, had starved him, McCullum told the Associated Press. His parents said that their son was no longer the boy they sent on the program and that they would consider filing a lawsuit against AFS USA, the nonprofit study abroad program that arranged McCullum's trip.
Doctors said the teen's health had deteriorated so much that he was at risk of suffering a heart attack when he returned in January.
But AFS also has photos of McCullum, and they show him celebrating with other students during the abroad experience. Some even show a smiling McCullum — who claimed that his starvation at one point was so dire that he resorted to stealing food — eating at parties.
"This situation is unique," Margaret Crotty, director of AFS Intercultural programs, told "Good Morning America." "It's not the norm." Crotty also insisted that student safety is always the organization's first priority. AFS USA, founded 60 years ago, organizes abroad programs in 40 countries.
The father of McCullum's host family, Shaker Hanna, told the AP that the teen under their care was extremely well-fed throughout his stay. The Coptic Christian family, which, by religious rite, is also vegetarian, offered McCullum fish and meat, Hanna said.
"The truth is, the boy we hosted for nearly six months was eating for an hour and a half at every meal. The amount of food he ate at each meal was equal to six people," said Hanna, who has two sons and a daughter studying in the United States in separate AFS exchanges.
McCullum acknowledges that his friends told him to leave Hanna's family, but the teen said that he wanted to stick it out, in part because the neighborhood where he would have to move was in a reputedly dangerous section of Alexandria. He did not complain to his parents, who now claim that AFS provided false assurances that their son was in excellent health.
McCullum is one of thousands of American students who travel overseas for high school and college exchange programs to learn about a foreign culture through immersion.
