Katharina Loemke from Germany is three quarters through her exchange here in Canberra. She is currently living with her third host family, Peter and Dot Barclay who are members of the RC Canberra Murrumbidgee. Katharina's fourth and final host family will be one of our members, the Bannerman family and she will move to stay with them in early April.
Katharina has had wonderful experiences both at school, where she gets to go on excursions (such as camping, surfing and learning to be a barista) where her teachers believe she will enjoy and learn new skills. She is able to mix with students from many cultures, play her cello in concerts and study subjects she would be unable to do at home in Germany.
The loan of a fine cello from the leader of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra has allowed her to pay with the Junior Ensemble and to keep up her wonderful cello playing ability.
The next experience is to go on the Safari where she will join with YEP students from other Rotary districts and travel north and west in Australia and samply some of the countries great attractions.
The Youth Exchange program has given her maturity, resilience, great experiences, understanding and lots of fun.
It costs our club very little enable this program to run. Do you know a student who would benefit from a year living in a different country? They would live with different families, experience different culture and language and grow as individuals. For this program to run we need to have students to go on these exchanges so please see if you know or can encourage families with young people who are 15 to 17.5 years old by mid January.
If you know someone who may be interested, please contact Natalie on natvan46@gmail.com. There is plenty of information on the District 9705 website under the Youth Exchange tag.