History
Our History: Building Peace Through Intercultural Understanding
Destined for the French port of Boulogne, S.S. General von Steuben sailed out of the harbor of New York on June 23, 1932 carrying twenty-three idealistic young men and their leader, Donald B. Watt. The first “experiment in international living” was underway.
It was a simple idea: “People learn to live together by living together.” 86 years later, this simple idea endures and thrives under the care of Federation EIL.
The Experiment in International Living was the first organization to offer ‘homestays’ (1933) as part of an international exchange program with Germany, in which students lived with host families, immersing themselves in a different culture.
The Experiment’s presence grew globally over the next twenty years, as did the worldwide growth of many independent international exchange providers.
With the goal of establishing a larger, global network of partners, striving for high quality programs, promoting similar values and philosophies for increased cross-cultural understanding, FEIL (Federation of The Experiment in International Living) was established in 1954.
Founding members of FEIL have made significant strides in global intercultural learning, including the training of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers from 1961 to 1971.
Over the years, members of Federation EIL have grown to include 11 countries around the globe with a diverse portfolio of programs.
Nevertheless, the original concept has remained firm: enabling individuals of all ages to share experiences, languages, and customs with those who come from different traditions, with the aims to broaden horizons, gain lifelong friends, and advance peace.
As the first hosting organization in the world, Federation EIL is a worldwide authority in quality international programming, with more than eight decades of national and international leadership in cultural exchanges.
Inspiring Sargent Shriver and the Peace Corps
In the early 1960s, Sargent Shriver—the first director of the Peace Corps and an alumi of The Experiment—called on The Experiment to train the earliest Peace Corps Volunteers. Shriver had had a life-changing experience as a participant in one of the first Experiment programs. Two years after his program, he served as an Experiment group leader to Germany and Austria and later was a group leader to France. These experiences helped Shriver develop the founding principles of the Peace Corps. He invited The Experiment President Gordon Boyce to help train the first Peace Corps volunteers to Gabon and Pakistan, which was the start of a deep, decades-long partnership between the Peace Corps, The Experiment in International Living, and our parent organization World Learning Inc.
