Through Morning Star school up to St Roses Secondary School Ghana, Miss Mercy Osei Owusu had always had the passion of setting up a youth organization. This idea translated into her joining of the American Field Service youth club, an intercultural exchange programme in the final year of junior high school.

She then had the oportunity to be a host sister for an exchange student from the United States. Having had the opportunity of sharing her ghanain culture as a host sister to her American exchange sister Heather Dineen in the year 1999 ,she then made it a point to iniciate the club AFS in her school (St Roses secondary school ) after realising the club did not exist in the school even though it did in many other high schools.

Upon working on this dream, she finally made it a success of becoming the founder and first president of AFS (St Roses senior secondary school Akwatia) in the year 2001. On completing her senior high school in the year 2002, she then had the opportunity to partake in the intercultural exchange programme with the host country being Denmark. Whiles on exchange, Mercy lived with her Danish family in a little town called Vedebaek with the Lauseen family where she learnt her first Danish experiences and culture.

She later had the oportunity to also live with two other host families in two other little towns know as Vorgod and Vildbjerg which are all situated on the Island called Jutlland, thus having more different exposures to the danish way of living. She attended Danish high school (HF) in the nearest biggest town called Herning where she made lots of friends and learnt the Danish language since the language of instruction at school was in Danish.

This was a big challenge in the begining but with time it all paid off. During the one year of exchange in Denmark Mercy learnt a lot as a young girl coming from one part of the world to another part of the world. Her experience as a young African girl in Denmark gave her the exposure to youthful life as experienced within the Danish or European context. Here, she faced the challenges as a young person ,and then decided to give back to other young people the opportunity of coming together as young people from different backgrounds and walks of life to make the world a better place to be through being a volunteer for AFS Ghana and Save the Children Denmark.

This whole experience gave way for the formation of IYEC (International Youth Exchange Community) which was formed and formally registerd on May 2008 in Accra Ghana with the help of Mr George kingsly Amuakwa. The registration of IYEC ghana was just a beginning . With the vision of the organization being an international organization and having branches all over the world , she then again set up a co-founding team of the the Danish branch of IYEC comprising

Miss Afua Nyarko
Mr Emmanuel Adjei
Mr Alfred Tamakloe
Miss Camilla Brolund
Miss Sonja
Miss Hilda Jensen.

It is therfore hoped that the objectives and aspirations envisaged will be realised and replicated in other parts of the world for the common good of all and sundry in consolidating interpersonal relationships at the youthful level.