People to People Scandal

My dad sent me an article about a Minnesota boy who died in Japan last summer. I hadn't heard of this story before now, but I find it really concerning.


The program mentioned in the article, People to People, actually recruited me to go on a study trip to Europe when I was in middle school (I remember daydreaming about kissing the Blarney stone...). I think I even knew one other kid who participated in one of their programs and it seemed reputable to me when I got the materials.


As much as I will advocate the importance of learning about other cultures and the value of spending time abroad, this is a reminder that things can go wrong and that you need to be careful when making arrangements. Wow, my heart goes out to this boy's family... what a sad story! Hopefully we can all learn something from this tragedy so it doesn't happen again.