“Overcome clichés 
and prejudices”

Kyle Peerless never imagined Germany was like this. “It’s much more colorful and more diverse than most Ameri­cans believe,” says the 23-year-old Californian. He is one of 150 young Germans and Ameri­cans who have already entered the world of work and are currently spending a year in the respective other country. Peerless finds it “extremely exciting to look beyond your own immediate horizon”.

The Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals (CBYX) program – or Parlamentarisches Patenschafts-Programm (PPP) as it is called in German – is the only government-funded exchange program for young people in engineering, technical, commercial and other careers who want to get to know everyday life on the other side of the Atlantic. They live with host families and work as interns in companies.

The program took mechanical engineer Kyle Peerless to Kelsterbach, a small town with 14,000 inhabitants in Hesse. He went to lectures on renewable energies at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. Then he began an internship 
at Schott, the Mainz-based technology group. His stay ends in mid-July 2016, but the young man wants to come back: “It’s my dream to work as an engineer in Germany.”

Because it is international understanding brought to life, CBYX has a lot of 
fans. “The participants are appreciated in their roles as German and American ‘junior ambassadors’ and overcome clichés and prejudices through their many personal encounters,” says Theo Fuss, Project Manager at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the body that organizes the CBYX program in Germany. “This impact as an opinion former is very import­ant.” The ‘junior ambassadors’ are encouraged to use this influence. A considerable amount of commitment is expected of them in other areas too: the participants have to find their own internships and contribute several thousand dollars toward the costs of their stay.

A year ago the US State Department planned to drastically cut its grants, which would have meant the end of 
the program in the medium term. However, members of both the US Congress and the German Bundestag made a big effort to keep it going; even Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier intervened. And alumni of the exchange program, which has been running for over 30 years, collected more than 20,000 signatures on an online petition within a few weeks.

The cuts were reversed, and the exchange program appears secure. There are new features, such as an Internet forum, moderated by experts, in which German and American participants can discuss their experiences. In the past, there was much less contact between the participants. In addition, more emphasis is being placed on voluntary work.

Kyle Peerless helped to set up a bicycle workshop in a home for refugees in Kelsterbach. Contact with Syrians, Iraqis and Eritreans has made a big impression on the young man who grew up in the prosperous coastal town of Carmel – and will cause him to ask questions at home: “Why does America want to take in only 10,000 Syrian refugees? We should do more. The European Union is our most important partner.” ▪

Christine Mattauch