10/02/2023
Hi everyone, this is Gemma Hensey from Westport again. For over 20 years I have been involved with Eirlan – finding host families for Spanish students mainly from around the Basque country.
Peter (who is Irish but lives near San Sebastian) set up the company and has been bringing students to Ireland for 30 + years. He flies the students into Knock, so he concentrates on placing students from Donegal to Galway and all the places along the way. All areas are accepted.
To be eligible to apply you must have a teenager in the household.
Hosting a student for four weeks pays very well.
The programme these students come on is called Total Immersion - they live with the host family and they are not supposed to have any contact with other Spanish students during their stay and should only speak English. They have signed a contract to that effect with Peter and their parents.
They live as part of your family and are not expected to be entertained all the time! Peter, the organiser, tries to match as accurately as possible the student’s interests with those of your child. Many students return to the same family year after year and then a younger sibling continues with the same family. Here are testimonies from host families – ‘for the last two years we were lucky to have Lide and we cried when she left last time-----‘, ‘we loved having Carlos, he fitted into our family like a dream and has kept in contact with us even when he skipped a year. His sister plans to come to us next year.' Many families keep in touch over the years and several Irish actually visit the families in Spain.
You will be visited by a coordinator at least once during the student's stay and if you should have any problems there will be 3 people available for you to contact.
You can contact (call, text or WhatsApp) me on 0872271177 and my son will check the messages that you send us on Facebook. Feel free to pass on our information to anyone else you think might be interested.
Thanks for reading!