Rotary International is planning to restart the Youth Exchange Program in 2022.
We watched select portions of the March Tuesday Talk concerning the Youth Exchange Program, particularly the testimonials of three former Rotary Exchange students.
ROTEX is an organization of returned exchange students. Madelaine, a 2018 outbound student to Denmark from Belleville Rotary (Madelaine helped us at our Rib drive thru event last summer). she shared how Youth Exchange changed her life. Taking a young student who had never been anywhere more than Toronto, now she has deep connections around the world.
A second student Noor went to Taiwan in 2016 from Whitby. She found trying to be good and smile 24/7 a lot of work and exhausting. She worked hard to learn language and she had a host father that encouraged her and celebrated each new word she learned. The language inspired her to study Linguistics at Brock University. She has learned sign language and is now working on Arabic as her 4th language.
The third student to share was our own Eloisa, now studying at Algonquin College. Eloisa is from Brasil and came to Brighton in 2018 where she gained a second family. She developed her leadership skills and found her passion to study business.
Can we Re-imagine our world. A step is Youth Exchange.
For Rotary Clubs to participate, the planning has to start now.
We need to confirm to District by August 30, 2021 that we will participate.
As a club, we need minimum of two Rotarians - 1 to be the Youth Exchange Councillor, 2 to be Youth Exchange Officer (more administrative). They cannot be the same person. Also recommended that club President not be the Councillor.
We will need access to ENSS in September to present to students and select an outbound student for the summer of 2022. District needs to know who student is by November 30, 2021.
We need at least two host families committed and organized this fall. Prefer three to four host families, however, two is minimum.
We have to participate in 'YEAH', Rotary's on line system to protect students and reporting.
District recommends a monthly stipend to students of $250. Brighton Rotary has provided inbound students a monthly allowance of $150 for about past 15 years.
There was considerable discussion about how to recruit and particularly acquire host families.