We quite often get asked by Alumni "How is the money we donate used?"

The Gallipoli Youth Award is a scholarship that commenced in 2009 with funding from AFS International. It was such a success that AFS New Zealand and AFS Turkey decided to fund the 2010 award themselves. The vision for this award is that it is one way of AFS to commemorate the sacrifice made during the First World War and that it will become an ongoing  scholarship funded through donations.

The Gallipoli Youth Award is particularly special as the AFS origins lie in the American Field Service, a volunteer ambulance corps formed in World War I and active through World War II.

AFS ambulance drivers believed that personal interaction and friendships between people built international peace and understanding. The sharing of cultures that the 2010 award recipients will experience, and their own strong family connections with brave First World War Gallipoli veterans, makes the Gallipoli Youth Award exchange a significant and poignant event.
The award is a true celebration of the spirit of ANZAC and New Zealand’s bond of brotherhood with Turkey.

The Honourable Judith Collins, Minister of Veterans Affairs presents the Gallipoli Youth Award to Devon Francis.

The 2010 Gallipoli Youth Award has gone to two students from New Zealand and Turkey with close connections to ANZAC soldiers who served at Gallipoli. They are 16-year-old Devon Francis of Auckland and 16-year-old Aytuna Yalcin, from Çanakkale in the Dardanelles.

The award involves a six-week exchange including homestays with each other’s families, attendance at local schools and participation in ANZAC and Turkish commemorative services.

If you would like ot follow Devon and Aytuna's exchange they have a blog that they will be updating on a regular basis

The Honourable Judith Collins presented Devon with the Gallipoli Youth Award at a ceremony at Albany Senior High School. Click here to view the TV3 news story.

From left to right: Tony Calvert, Marketing and Communications Manager, AFS New Zealand, Nejat Kavvas, Consul-General of Turkey, Devon Francis, Gallipoli Award recepient, The Honourable Judith Collins, Minister of Veterans Affairs, BJ (Barry) Clark, National Vice President RNZ Returned and Services Association