About AVE

AVE (Foreign Exchange Program full of Adventure) has a small office located in San José, Costa Rica, that organizes full board stays for students in carefully chosen Costa Rican host families since 2000.

A program can last from three to ten months. AVE organizes attendance at a public or private high school. AVE can guarantee a personal and direct contact with you at all times; making sure your stay is always pleasurable.

AVE‘s aim is to offer students from Europe and other countries a personal and individual custom­ tailored school experience in Costa Rica. The AVE team is boosted by two main goals: to promote social competence of the individual and to correctly prepare the student for his/her professional life, especially in regards to inter-cultural involvement, by means of international experiences.

In addition, AVE organizes “Volunteer Work” in the social and environmental field, propelled by the motto “Happiness consists in giving and in serving others”.

The main objective of this program is to convey not only an open­-minded mentality, but also to transmit the principles of solidarity, tolerance and flexibility which are inalienable in the global world of economy. The success of AVE is based on the Total­ Inmersion Program (T.I.P.) which intents to present the real Costa Rican culture to the students and to convey knowledge at linguistic and cultural levels. At the end of the program, you will realize that this technique is the one which promotes the highest learning effect possible.

AVE’s team consists of people with multi­cultural experiences. Due to numerous study and work periods on behalf of the management staff in Europe and North America, AVE is well acquainted with the European and north american lifestyles; and is therefore, aware of the small and big differences between both cultures.

International students should learn at an early age that there are many ways to implement an idea and to solve problems within the global context, we are living in today’s expanded world. It is important to quickly understand how work and communication procedures function in other cultures. The leaders of tomorrow ought to be raised with open­ minded and flexible mentalities. Due to the inevitability of constant change and transformation, people cannot be certain that they will remain in the same place and in the same way.

Summing up, multilingual and multicultural competence is vital to reach a fulfilling, self ­directed and successful professional life. A stay abroad offers you the opportunity to take the first step towards that successful professional life.

“The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” Lao Tzu