Humble Rotary Recognizes 10 Youth Exchange Students
Posted by Ernest Hauser on Jul 25, 2016
NEWS RELEASE
Contact Ernest Hauser @ beveh@aol.com
For Immediate Release
Humble Rotary Recognizes 10 Youth Exchange Students
The Rotary Club of Humble recognized 10 Youth Exchange Students at its weekly meeting.
Four of the ten will be experiencing a short term visit (6-8 week) while the other 6 will be going for a long term (11-12 months) experience. The cost is approx. $2000 for Short Term and $5000-$6000 for Long Term. The value of a long term exchange is approximately a $20,000 “scholarship”, as it provides room, board and education for the entire 11-12months.
Short term student Geirtt Nelson will return to Spain with Eduardo Abril and Darian Barrett will return to Germany with Tim Jochin. Eduardo and Tim presented club banners from their respective sponsoring clubs.
The six long term outbound students and their destination are Hannah Davitt (France), Stratton Wills (Germany), Emmie Dalton ( Belgium ), Jack Witmer ( Paraguay ), Kierstan Hunt ( Italy ) and Brandon Collins ( Germany )—who was unable to attend.
Outbound students age 15-18, go thru an extensive qualification process which assesses their "Adaptability/Flexibility, Ambassador Skills, School performance and recommendations, Maturity, Ability to communicate, Initiative, Responsibility, Service to others and potential concerns. Once chosen they go thru an orientation camp designed to prepare them for differences in language and culture. They are being prepared to be out of their comfort zone. The students come out with a special camaraderie.
These students are special, qualified and prepared to experience the opportunity of a life time.
An interview was conducted after the meeting in order to obtain some insights of the 8 outbound students and the two visiting students. Representing Rotary were Youth Exchange Officer Susan Brodbeck, Outbound Chair Kelly Paull, Youth Exchange Counselor Nancy Jo Derby and Social Media Chair Ernest Hauser.
When asked for goals for their youth exchange, Tim and Eduardo said they wanted to meet people from other countries and communicate in a new language. Tim said he was surprised by chlorine in the water and the heat. Eduardo said everything is bigger here, including food portions. Both observed that more extra-curricular activities are available through school here. Tim’s favorite food here is hamburgers, and Eduardo likes enchiladas, which he said he does not get in Spain.
Hannah is looking forward to becoming a real part of the families she will live with. Emmie Dalton would like to become involved in service projects with the local Rotary club in Belgium Jack Whitner will be looking for ways to help people during his exchange to Paraguay. Stratton Wills hopes to learn about the German school system. Kierstan Hunt , who will go to Italy, said she would like to learn about historical events from a non-American perspective. Jack said that he is anticipating the first week being exciting because of the newness of the situation, but after that will come the challenge of learning to actually live there and not feel like a tourist. Jack’s exchange will be unusual in the sense that Humble Rotary Club will host a young man from Paraguay, with Jack’s family serving as one of the host families while Jack is in Paraguay.
Emmie said that the Youth Exchange Orientation camp helped a lot, and “I am ready to do this!” Kierstan said that she had talked to students going on other types of exchanges, and they were not as well prepared as the Rotary Youth Exchange students. Both Emmie and Kierstan said that they have already invested a lot in doing the exchange this coming year, as they have graduated from high school and have foregone the college application process they would otherwise have gone through to prepare for the year. All the students said that they have been in contact with their first host families to learn about them and ease the transition.
It was shared that there have been students that were not prepared for this experience and they returned before the end of their exchange. All of the students stated that failure was not an option. They have been well trained and are ready for the opportunity.
The Rotary Club of Humble is committed to the Youth Exchange Program whose objective is to further international goodwill and understanding by enabling students to study first hand some of the accomplishments and problems of people in lands other than their own. To know and understand other cultures is an important part of World Peace.
Host Families are vital to the Exchange Program. We can only send students out if we have families here who will host Inbound Students. Host families and all volunteers with the RYE program are vetted and oriented to the rules and procedures of the program. RYE is administered by Rotarians who are all volunteers
Humble Rotary has hosted 21 LT Inbounds since 2006. Since 2010 we have sent 28 LT Outbound and 14 ST Exchanges. We have vetted 52 Host families in the last 10 years.
Students interested in a Rotary Youth Exchange in the future should contact Susan Brodbeck in September, Humble Rotary Club Youth Exchange Officer at susan.brodbeck@gmail.com
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About Rotary
Rotary brings together a global network of volunteer leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges. Rotary connects 1.2 million members of more than 34,000 Rotary clubs in over 200 countries and geographical areas. Their work impacts lives at both the local and international levels, from helping families in need in their own communities to working toward a polio-free world. For more information, visit www.humbleintercontinentalrotary.com or www.Rotary.org .
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