A Worldly Opportunity
Exchange program gives kids the opportunity  to see the world
by Phil Jackman

    One of the main strengths of Rotary International, is that it is "International." In the Galena Rotary Club, we participate in International Service in a number of areas, including participating in Central States Rotary Youth Exchange.

Dari Cortez from Mexico

    Through this program, high school students in Jo Daviess County are sponsored to spend a year studying abroad and foreign high school exchange students are sponsored to come live and attend school in Jo Daviess County for a year. This year, students can go to any one of 48 countries in all corners of the world.

   Over the past 15 years, students from Jo Daviess County have been sent to Denmark, Germany, Spain, Thailand, Brazil, Belgium, Sweden, Japan, India, Bolivia, Mexico, Finland, Turkey, Japan, France, Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

    A unique aspect of Rotary Youth Exchange is the support network of the participating Rotary Clubs that exists to help the students and their parents make the most of the exchange year.

    Selected students and they families go through an extensive orientation process before departure, culminating in the summer conference in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where students and their parents are given the opportunity to meet with students who have just returned from their year abroad and their parents.

    The students get to learn first-hand what it's like to be an exchange student in the country to which they will be going.

    Once a student arrives in their assigned country, they are the responsibility of the receiving Rotary Club who will provide approved host families, grade appropriate education, a monthly spending allowance, a youth exchange officer to handle all questions, situations or problems that might arise for the student, and through the various club members opportunities for travel, sports, culture and unique and memorable experiences that make the exchange year the experience of a life time.

    No foreign language training is needed to be an exchange student. Most students have no experience in the language of their host country before they arrive. However, they will be fluent in the language by the time they return home 11 months later.

    All high school students living in Jo Daviess County who are in the top half of their class are eligible to apply to be a Rotary exchange student.  Interested families should contact Phil Jackman, youth exchange officer to the Rotary Club of Galena to find out more about the program and receive the preliminary application.  Jackman can be reached at 815-777-3311. 

    The exchange students of today will shape the world of tomorrow, and Rotary International is leading the way through Rotary Youth Exchange.

    More information regarding the Rotary Youth Exchange program is available at the Central States Rotary Youth Exchange website at www.csrye.org.