For 30 years, Hosts International has provided accommodation, specifically homestays, to international students from UK and lately Ireland’s leading institutions. We have taken pride in creating a brand that encourages all things ‘family’. As our business has grown, so has our network of families; thousands across the UK and in Ireland. Those who take pride in and make great effort with enthusiasm, in providing a ‘family’ life experience for visiting students from around the world. Our family extends to our dedicated, excellent staff who are here for you, working remotely, keeping the support for our partners, students and host families.
We’ve been thinking a lot about you, our valued our customers, schools and students, our employees, our homestay hosts and our greater communities.
The Coronavirus pandemic has touched us all, and it is likely that it may go on for some time to come. The impact to our business reliant on overseas students is grave and as a result, the impact to our schools, our staff, our hosts, and our greater communities. But there is nothing more important that keeping safe right now.
We believe it’s critical to do our part to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19 while protecting daily life and livelihoods.
We aim to ensure that none of our students and hosts are putting their health and wellbeing at risk, and as the help, we have put together some of the useful guidelines we recommend everyone to follow and to help your concerns about the Covid-19.
Current students
The majority of the schools in the UK and Dublin are closed/closing in line with government advice to limit the spread of the virus and most of our schools are now offering online classes.
The travel home might be more complicated for some students due to current travel bans and restrictions set by several countries, so we ask our hosts to be flexible and understanding. In case of any event of changing the school routine of the students, please inform us accordingly, so that we can keep the hosts informed. If your student leaves, wishes to leave, wants to extend their stay with our homestays, we ask you to contact us at the earliest.
We are constantly monitoring with our schools and students their current health updates and we believe that none of our current students or homestays have been infected, however we ask you to keep us updated in case that you receive any information about the health situation of your students and of course remind all our homestay hosts to look out for their own health and their students as part of the family household. We realise the importance of community at this difficult time for us all.
The best source of references is:
- https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/
- https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid- 19/guidance-to-educational-settings-about-covid-19
- https://www2.hse.ie/coronavirus/
Peter Brown