 Team From Wales Visits Ketchikan May 27, 2003
 Photo by Dick Kauffman ©2003 Prior to visiting Ketchikan, the GSE Team visited Anchorage, Kenai, and Homer. The exchange program began on May 11th and will end on June 16th. After leaving Ketchikan, the team will visit Petersburg, Whitehorse, Fairbanks, Barrow and the Denali National Park. The Rotary International Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is an educational, vocational and social activity of The Rotary Foundation. According to information provided in an information packet, "the program offers a unique person-to-person opportunity for the promotion of better understanding and friendly relations among peoples of the world. The program provides travel grants for the exchange of teams of young business and professional men and women between paired districts in different countries. The opportunity enables Team members to study and experience vocational institutions and the cultures of their hosts through the personal interaction of living in hosts' homes and by the exchange of ideas and customs. The opportunity exists for the selected teams to present themselves and their cultures to a diverse range of people. Traveling with a sense of mission derived from their desire to learn and to promote understanding, these young men and women bring personal knowledge of their own country to the thousands they meet while abroad. Through their study of another country, their observations of its customs, their explorations into its business and professional life, their meetings and discussions with its people, come many opportunities for the development of understanding and lasting friendships." The Group Study Exchange is a reciprocal program. Over a one or two year period each of the paired districts must both send and receive a team. A District selects a team of outstanding young people who represent a cross section of businesses and professions in the district and sends them to a district in another country for a study program for not less than four weeks and not more than six weeks. During 2002-04, Rotary District 5010 (Alaska, Yukon Territory, Russia) will participate in three exchanges, one with District 1180 Wales, another with District 9600 Queensland, Australia, and one between their Russian sector and District 5490 in Arizona. Among the many activities and
tours planned for the GSE Team members while in Ketchikan is
a potluck dinner and GSE presentation with First City Rotary
and Rotary 2000 at the Ketchikan Yacht Club on Tuesday evening. The Wales' Group Study Exchange
Team will leave for Petersburg, Alaska on Thursday, May 29th.
|