The International Youth Service is closing
Here is the statement you'll find on IYS' homepage:
IYS will be closing down this summer, by 30th June 2008
The International Youth Service (IYS) has been operating since 1952, over 56 years now. We have arranged foreign pen friends for school children and students aged 10 - 20 years in over 100 different countries.
The internet has lead to a situation where sending ordinary letters is old-fashioned. Letter writing, once very popular, is now a hobby of a few.
We have come to the end of a certain period. As we can not find enough young people interested in penfriendship any more, we have decided to close down this firm by 30th June 2008.
We thank all our customers, both children and teachers, in past years and wish you happy times. Don’t stop learning different languages and cultures and keep up those penfriendships you have managed to build up.
The staff of INTERNATIONAL YOUTH SERVICE
This is very unfortunate. I have made quite a few friends around the world, in Europe, Asia and Africa, thanks to IYS. I can't even remember who introduced me to their service but I do remember having my friends, siblings and classmates signing up to find penfriends abroad.
It was a great experience for me. Even though I don't write to any of my penfriends anymore, I have very good memories of them. Some of them I've written for five to six years from the time I was in secondary school to my university years. Most of my penfriends were girls but I also had a few boy-penfriends. Bahadir was one of them. We lost touch because of address problems, my letters did not get to him they were returned but I found him on Facebook and we are in contact again.
It is unfortunate that the rise of the Internet has forced the IYS to close. As I was going through my letters, showing them to my younger brother, along with a few of the presents and postcards my penfriends sent me, he asked me how he could have penfriends too. I was no longer in contact with IYS but I remembered they had a site and I was hoping to find out, from the site, how I could register my brother with them. Alas!
I understand that it probably costs less to have friends over the internet than to have postal-mail friends but those are two very different experiences. I have a few people online I met online who wanted to be my (snailmail)penfriends and I'm not even counting those who wanted me to send them postcards.
When the Internet became mainstream, IYS decided it did not want to encourage students to make friends through this new media. It kept offering solely services via postal mail. I believe that it's where they went wrong. Yes, they don't want to encourage emailfriends but they could have used their website to offer the same services to students and teachers. Using the internet would have helped them keep the kids interested while cutting costs for the students. At least the fees would be lower and no postage would be necessary to get addresses. They would simply send you the other persons' information online. The problem with the Internet is identity verification and an overabundance of predators. So they would probably have issues with adults posing as children and requesting penfriends...
The closing of IYS is very unfortunate, did I say that already? I always wondered what the IYS headquarters looked like? How they organized their work, what their equipment looked like? Who the employees were? I guess I'll never know any of all this. Their site looked nearly empty with simply the announcement on the main page.
I still wanted to see more of IYS. So I went on Google and search the iys.fi site and found out most of their pages (like the fees page) are still online. I was unpleasantly surprised to see that Haiti was not included in the counties listed... I went to the United-States page and found out the service was not expensive at all, US $2.00 per address. Knowing that they guaranteed a response, it was really a great value. I kept searching and finally found Haiti on one of their older method of payment pages. Yay!
Now the only alternative for my brother to find a penfriend is to join a penpal site, penpalnet for example is free but they don't give any guarantees and you have to search for your penpal by yourself. Additionally the people you find online usually prefer email correspondence.
6 comments:
My daughter has seen pictures of my penpals and has been awaiting turning 10 so she could apply for a penpal, alas she will miss this opportunity to hone her letter writing skills and learn of different cultures with the closure of IYS.
I joined the IYS when I was 13 and overall had over 20 pen-friends that I wrote to throughout the next 10 years. And one in particular, we had the opportunity to visit each other. While the internet has proved very useful in many ways, this is one situation that the end of an era may not be for the best. I was hoping that my son would have been able to have this opportunity. Writing letters to children of other cultures provides more skills than just being able to make a new friend. How sad this is.
I got my first penpals at the age of 13. Before I left school I had more than 20.
Until today I still have contact with 2 of them but one became my best friend. we visit each other every year and meanwhile our daughters (both 7 years old) are penpals, too.
THANK YOU SO MUCH!!
A friend started the IYS fever in me when I was 14. Now at 41, I am still thinking how that ritual helped me form my character especially on courtesy, politeness, patience, ingenuity, and tolerance. Mind you, my first letter was probably my first true paragraph written using my first ever way of constructing my English sentence (well by a boy coming from a kerosene-lit rural area). I can still feel the excitement (seeing a mailman knocking at our bamboo fence) upon receiving a letter with a different smell. Recalling as well the family problems I shared with my penfriends or the stamps (bearing strange flowers, birds, personages, etc.), the coins, photos, and souvenirs I had exchanged with them, I could truly attest how the values of kindness, patience, understanding, and generosity are equally shared in other parts of the globe (even all I got for my friends then was my trust and sincerity). All, I can say is, "Thank You Very Much IYS."
I got a kid who is now 11 and how I wish he could learn the rigor of what is to be a friend not just through texts messages or emails but through the suggestions specified in the IYS booklet. (Hope many could remember this mini bible of how to construct a polite letter). For me, to be an IYS correspondent includes patience and sincerity in writing out your thoughts, resourcefulness and creativity, understanding and tolerance to different manners of expressing ideas across cultures, sense of optimism and appreciation to everything around you that you are much eager to share them to your friends, and a universal air of gratefulness to the efforts of each who took time to write and surprise you back.
When I was in college, things turned out bad for the Philippine economy. Honestly, there were times when all I got was my meal allowance; but without misgivings, I used it to send my letter on time. I could not recall when literally I had nothing in my pocket that I soon I found out that could not afford anymore to pay the mailing service.
After college, it was difficult to find a job (mostly contractual). My father got sick, our house needed repair, and so our fence…our water pump broke, my sister wished to have a room of her own, and I got to buy a new pair of shoes after three years... I was really financially in trouble to maintain an expensive foreign postal service.
I got married at 28, lots of expenses followed when kids arrived...
Now, after so many years, I still honor my friends (though in my silence). I still have their addresses and photos. I am confident that all my friends (with their hearts full of kindness and understanding) are now happily married. I was and am very very sorry for not having able to maintain my letter writing with them. All I have now are my kids, whom I wish they would learn to appreciate and value friends not only for a brief period of time, but probably for the rest of their memories.
To those who succeeded in maintaining contacts with their penfriends... my congratulations – you will surely inspire my kids, nephews, and nieces as they meet friends in their growing up years.
How I wish a new website will be around that can accommodate different stories, inspirations, lessons, queries, suggestions, old addresses, new addresses, trivia, and comments related to IYS and friendship across cultures. Thank you.
the previous comments sum up my wonderful experience with IYS! what a shame! i was just about to recommend it to a teenager who would still like to make friends around the world. These friendships through IYS shaped my personality and life, and i feel sad for those who will never experience the art and entertainment and enlightenment from letter writing and getting to know people this way.
I really got very sad when i heard that iys closed down on june 2008.
I got a lot of firend all over the world through iys,that was 25 years ago.
Thanks iys
thank you from all of my heart,you have marked a long time of my life.i will remember you forever.
Ahmed mahdy younes
Egypt
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