Rotary Youth Exchange Bridging Cultures and Expanding Minds
For the average high schooler looking to attain the highest level of education, leaving school is increasingly becoming the answer.
That is, leaving their school campus and taking on a global experience for a year.
Starting in September 2017, what would have been the start to her Grade 11 year at Bow Valley High School, Tianna Davidson travelled to Italy through the Rotary Club exchange program.
Rotary is an international service organization where each branch works on multiple community projects. There are more than 1.2 million Rotarians in 35,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide.
Davidson attended school in the northern Alpine Lombardy region of the Mediterranean country, in a town called Bergamo, about an hour from Milan and Verona where she lived with three different families over the course of her 10-month stay.
But it wasn’t the lessons in school that stuck with her the most, it was the experience of being immersed in a culture halfway around the world.
As a Rotary participant, on top of learning the language of her destination country, she was also an ambassador of Canada, sharing her culture and values.
Story by Amy Tucker/Cochrane Eagle