Volunteers are at the heart of the Rotary Youth Exchange program

 

Volunteers are at the heart of the Rotary Youth Exchange program

By Arnold R. Grahl

George French, a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Minnesota last year, is greeted by Ivone Pinheiro de Souza Silva and Ednei da Silva, his host parents in Guarulhos, Brazil, near São Paulo.Image credit: Maira Erlich

As a Rotary Youth Exchange student from Sweden in the 1970s, Olof Frisk chose to study in Colorado because he wanted to ski. But it was meeting the other exchange students in the district that carved his life’s path.

At that moment, he knew he wanted to become a Rotarian. He went on to join a Rotary club and serve as club president, chair of his district’s Youth Exchange committee, and then chair of the multidistrict Youth Exchange committee overseeing the program throughout Sweden. Today, as governor of District 2340, Frisk remains involved in the program and believes volunteering to help Youth Exchange grow is an investment in Rotary’s future.

“If you haven’t been involved in a Youth Exchange and seen the interaction of the kids, you don’t realize how important this program is,” says Frisk. “Students from all over the world become leaders and are friendly with each other. This is the original thought behind peacebuilding.”

Inspired to get involved? Unlike other exchange programs, Rotary Youth Exchange runs entirely on volunteers, so extra hands are always in demand. Roles exist at both the club and district levels.

Hosting

By far the greatest need is for host families. If your district already has a program, approach your club’s committee chair. Like all Rotary and non-Rotary volunteers working with young people, host families need to complete an application, criminal background check, reference check, and in-person interview.

“It’s the best place to start. It gives you a great perspective if you are going to be coordinating the program at any other level,” says Sabrina Barreto, a counselor for Youth Exchange students in District 4500 (Brazil) who went on both short- and long-term exchanges.

Barreto’s mother, Emanuelle, a member of the Rotary Club of Natal-Potiguar, chairs the district’s Youth Exchange committee and has hosted more than 40 students, starting when Sabrina was a year old. Emanuelle Barreto says another way to get involved is to volunteer as a counselor.

Counselors

Clubs assign a counselor who serves as a liaison for the student, club, host family, and community at large. The counselor is the student’s primary Rotary contact, easing the transition into the country and the community through regular, direct interactions throughout the exchange.

A Rotary counselor can’t hold a role of authority over the student’s exchange (for example, the person can’t be a member of a student’s host family, school principal, club president, or district or club Youth Exchange officer). And counselors must be able to respond to any problems or concerns that may arise, including anything from students’ simple questions about navigating their new town to rare instances of abuse or harassment.

“It’s very important for the counselor to build a connection with the student,” says Emanuelle Barreto. “We are not just talking about taking them for coffee or a sandwich or to a movie. You’ve got to get to know them and spend time with them. Sometimes that means being together just doing nothing.”

George French and Regina Alesi participate in a Rotary meeting last year during their exchanges in Brazil.

Image credit: Maira Erlich

Serving on a committee

If you already have some experience, consider serving on your club or district Youth Exchange committee. A club committee plans, implements, and supports all activities involved in sending and hosting long- and short-term exchange students. As a member of a club committee, you will attend district Youth Exchange meetings, establish expectations for how students will participate in club meetings and activities, obtain feedback from students, and notify the district’s Youth Exchange chair of any issues or concerns.

On the district level, committee members work with the district governor and the district’s youth protection officer to supervise the entire district’s program. A youth protection officer is responsible for fostering safe environments across all youth programs. For this role, you’ll need professional experience handling abuse and harassment issues, as well as a familiarity with RI policies and relevant local and national laws.

Some districts band together to form a multidistrict Youth Exchange committee to streamline administrative duties over a larger region. Each multidistrict group operates differently, but many arrange training for volunteers and orientation for students, process applications and visa paperwork, negotiate group rates for travel and insurance, and promote the program in their region.

Supporting cast

If none of the above roles fits your time and talents, consider helping spread the word about the program. “There are so many things to be done,” says Sabrina Barreto. “There are relationships to build with clubs, families, and other districts. You don’t necessarily need to be involved with teenagers. There is a role for everyone.”

No matter the role, the work is fulfilling.

“I’ve had no better feeling than to see the kids that I have trained on the other side of the world accomplishing great things,” she says. “Just speaking about it gives me goose bumps. It makes me so proud of them.”

This story originally appeared in the June 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.

Visit :-

https://www.rotary.org/en/volunteers-are-heart-rotary-youth-exchange-program

Finding family in France

 

Finding family in France

Rotary Youth Exchange alum Athena Trentin shares her advice for young travelers

By JP Swenson

Athena Trentin had a boring childhood — at least, according to her. She grew up in Escanaba, Michigan, a port city in the Upper Peninsula with a population of 14,000 at the time. “Most people were expected to grow up and graduate from high school, work for the paper mill, work in the skilled trades,” Trentin says. “My parents never really gave me any other option than to go to college and see the world, become who I want to be.”

When Trentin was in junior high, her mom became active in recapturing her family’s Indigenous identity and helped create a community center for Native Americans living in Escanaba, which was 20 miles from the closest reservation. But there was pushback from members of the City Council, and Trentin says she was retaliated against at school. This first encounter with racism sparked a realization in her. “There’s a world out there, and I wanted to see it,” she says. “I belonged somewhere I could meet people from everywhere.”

Athena Trentin’s experience as a Rotary Youth Exchange student showed her “what life could be.” “It was the most amazing year of my life,” she says.

Image credit: Paul Go

She found out about Rotary Youth Exchange and wanted to participate but was too young to meet the age requirement. Trentin felt stuck and that feeling compounded the following year when her family couldn’t afford the trip amid her parents’ divorce. The Rotary Youth Exchange representative in her town came back to her family and said, “She is the person we want to send.” Trentin didn’t let it go.

She got a job at a fast food restaurant to help pay the travel costs not covered through the program. She received a grant from United Way to host her own international summit. She invited exchange students from various organizations in the Upper Peninsula to Escanaba to discuss their perceptions of the United States and their views of the world.

She remembers thinking, “If we can exchange this information, imagine what we could do to change the world.” United Way sent her to a national leadership conference at Indiana University. “That’s probably the first time I had ever been out of Wisconsin and Michigan — the first time I ever met people of color other than American Indians.” She needed more experiences like that one. And the summer after her junior year, Rotary Youth Exchange sent her to France.

Athena Trentin

• Rotary Youth Exchange, 1990-91
• Master’s in teaching English to speakers of other languages, Michigan State University, 1997-2000
• Doctorate in education, University of Southern California, 2003-08
• Executive director, National Alliance on Mental Illness North Texas, 2019-24

• “I don’t think I realized that I was leaving for a year. I remember my parents having to pick me up from overnight camps because I was homesick,” she says. She was excited but also nervous about things like unfamiliar food, her grasp of the language, and if her host family was going to be nice. “What do I do then? How am I going to last a year? What if I don’t like it? What if I want to go home?” she thought.

  When her plane landed, her host father met her at the gate. Outside of baggage claim, a huge group of people were waiting to welcome her. “This is your family,” he told her. Trentin felt alone growing up, like she didn’t fit in. “This is my family,” she thought as her host family came in to embrace her.

  Trentin’s first host family lived on the French-Swiss border near Geneva in a beautiful house in the country. Life was much different than back home. “My father was a millwright, and he was on and off unemployment. We didn’t have a lot of money. We didn’t have economic stability,” she says. “I got to experience that for the first time. And that stability made all the difference in the world for me. It showed me what life could be.” She still cherishes the dinners and holidays shared with the family.

  School was another eye-opening experience, especially learning world history from a European perspective. She began to understand that American education favored one side of history, one that often neglected her Indigenous roots.

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  Trentin also learned an important lesson about travel that she carries with her today. When her third host family took her to the City of Light, she was excited to finally see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and other attractions she’d heard so much about in her French class in the U.S. But visiting those spots wasn’t as satisfying as she’d imagined.

  When she returned to America, she made it her goal to go to a new country every two years with two stipulations: travel inexpensively and immerse yourself. “You’re not going to learn anything about the culture just going up the elevator in the Eiffel Tower,” she says.

  For many years, Trentin worked in international student affairs at various American universities. Here’s her advice for Rotary Youth Exchange students: Allow travel to change you for the better. “This experience will change your view of the world. You will grow in ways you’ve never imagined,” she says. She urges young travelers to follow the “platinum rule”: Do unto others as they would want done unto them. That is, show respect for other cultures and learn their unwritten rules.

  

  Trentin during her exchange in France in 1990-91.

  Courtesy of Athena Trentin

• “Ask yourself, ‘What am I willing to negotiate as I’m trying to fit in this new culture?’” she says. “It can be something as simple as tasting new foods. It can be as complex as one of those core values you thought you would never compromise.” This openness led Trentin to newfound confidence when she returned home.

  Before her trip, Trentin was reserved. But when she came back, she decided to let her guard down. “That’s something Rotary gave me: the confidence to just be me,” she says. “Since then, I’m more comfortable and pay more attention when I’m the minority in the room. I can learn from everybody else and that ended up helping me in my career.”

  Trentin also returned to the U.S. with a bigger family. “The first host family I had is still my family. They will always be my family,” she says. “I’ll say, ‘my French family’ and people are like, ‘What? You’re French?’” Most exchange students Trentin knows are still very close with their host families.

  “It was the most amazing year of my life,” she says. At the time she shared these thoughts, Trentin was looking for plane tickets to Mauritius, an African island country in the Indian Ocean where her host brother, Raphael, had just moved.

  This story originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of Rotary magazine.

Visit :-

https://www.rotary.org/en/finding-family-france

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