10News honors Danielle Grijalva, founder of the Committee for Safety of Foreign Exchange Students (CSFES), a non-profit organization that educates exchange organizations and government agencies on how to ensure the protection of foreign exchange students around the world.

Grijalva was an area representative for the Center for Cultural Interchange, a foreign exchange student program based in Illinois. She helped find host families for students studying in the U.S. and worked hard to understand what her students needed. In 2004, she spoke with a 16-year-old exchange student from France and learned his host father offered him alcohol and photographed him while sleeping. Danielle knew he probably was not the only exchange student who experienced abuse from a host family.

Danielle started CSFES in order to raise public awareness about the issue. The organization focuses on educating exchange organizations, government agencies, and families to ensure the protection of students around the world. CSFES monitors exchange student abuse and provides information to interested parties in an effort to significantly reduce the number of students who become victims of child/sexual abuse, neglect and extortion.

CSFES' operating expenses are funded by Danielle, as well as donations from families and grants. CSFES supports cultural exchange and is committed to the idea that every foreign student deserves a safe and memorable exchange experience. They believe without reservation that while these sons and daughters are studying abroad, they should expect and fully deserve, to be treated as if they are our own.

Danielle and CSFES would like to eventually establish CSFES in other countries, to understand and promote safety measures while abroad. Another goal for CSFES is to translate the travel guide "Travel Safe, Be Safe" into 30 different languages so that students traveling abroad would have a reference guide.

For more information, please contact CSFES at 866-471-9203 or visit www.csfes.org.