Lions send youth across the globe

Times Reporter

 

The Lions International Youth Exchange program has been around since the early 1960’s, sending youth around the world to experience other countries and cultures. Originally the program began with the U.S. and Canada and quickly expanded worldwide.

“Our club got involved in 1963, we’ve been supporting it ever since that time. I think there has only been a couple of years we didn’t send anybody,” said Art Eeles with the Strathmore Lions.

“They get choices (of where they can go) when they apply. They put down three places, and hopefully they’ll get one of those, if not their first choice then the second.” 

Strathmore High School student Matt Rederburg was one of the lucky students who took part in the program this year. He said the program was advertised at school, and interested students had to apply by giving their information and writing a short letter stating their interest.  

“It actually ended up (that) everybody who applied got to go. There were four applications, and the Lions Club decided to sponsor all four students,” said Rederburg. 

Not all of the students picked the same location to go to, and Rederburg said out of the other three picked, one of them had to opt out. 

“I chose Denmark because I know absolutely nothing about Denmark. It was my first time in Europe so I wanted it to be completely new, and also they speak English really well over there so that was beneficial,” said Rederburg.

The Lions paid for the flights out, he stayed with two host families and at a camp. The Lions paid for all travel and Rederburg was responsible for his own spending money. Rederburg was in Denmark for just over three weeks, spending approximately a week with each host family, before finishing up at a camp. 

The purpose of the trip was to learn and experience a different culture, and in that sense Rederburg admits it was in it’s own way educational. 

“I suppose in a broad sense, yes you could pretty much throw everything under education, but there’s different aspects of it. You learn about the culture and history which is more…a traditional sense of education but there’s also an aspect of social learning I suppose, because you have to adapt to different cultures,” said Rederburg.

“The last week I was at a camp with students from all across the world so you saw how social interactions played out there despite language and culture barriers, so it was fairly interesting.

“I would definitely recommend it to anybody who is interested. It was definitely new, living with the new family on top of the slight culture shock although it wasn’t that bad being in Denmark. It’s a very unique experience but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anybody at all.”

If given a chance to apply for the exchange program again, Rederberg said he definitely would, though he would pick somewhere different from Denmark.