Barrie Youth Exchangers
Natassja Bilinski, left, and Jessika McLaurin will say goodbye to their family and friends on Friday before leaving overseas to study foreign cultures with the Rotary Youth Exchange program. Bilinski will live in Taiwan for a year while McLaurin will be visiting Belgium. LANCE HOLDFORTH PHOTO
Barrie’s Rotary Clubs are helping two teens experience the world first hand as they prepare to travel across the world to study new cultures. Jessika McLaurin and Natassja Bilinski will be Canadian representatives and ambassadors for Barrie when they fly overseas to live with four different families during a year with the Rotary Youth Exchange program. The program helps more than 8,000 youths travel to more than 80 countries to experience new ways of life. McLaurin, 17, says she is looking forward to living in Belgium. “ Right now it’s a pretty emotional time, but it’s exciting,” she said. “I just want to be able to see that there’s more beyond our way of life and to be able to experience that and be aware of everything else happening around you.”
McLaurin’s mother, Joanne, participated in the program in 1984 when she lived in New Zealand for a year, and now, her daughter is eager to follow in her mother’s foot steps and represent the Rotary Club of Barrie- Huronia. “I’ve been researching for months now since finding out where we were going,” she said. “It’s going to be different and it’s going to be challenging.” As Joanne is set to say goodbye to her daughter, she said she knows she will be in good hands as she takes her own journey abroad. “With the assurance from the Rotary and how well they take care of these students it’s like she’s going with all these arms around her,” she said. “They are ambassadors and they will be the faces of Barrie while they’re there.”
Each student will enroll in the host country’s equivalent of high school and will learn and live with families within the Rotary’s international network, which Bilinski said will offer a variety of new experiences during her time in Taiwan. “I personally want to become a stronger person,” she said. “Even though I’m very open-minded, when I go there it’s going to seem like I’m small minded because I haven’t experienced this new country, culture and food.”
Eric Dean is the head of the youth exchange program with the Rotary Club of Barrie, and said the two youths will make excellent representatives of the city. “What we’re looking for is that the kids seem to have enough emotional maturity to handle the exchange and how well suited they are to be an ambassador of Canada,” he said. “They’re representing their club, they’re representing their city and their country, so we want them to be able to do that well.” Dean said students who have participated in the program before have benefitted from an international education, but also the experience the world has to offer young people.
“We tend to see that the kids grew more in a year abroad than they would in four years of university,” he said. “You’ve gone overseas, adapted to another culture, lived with four different families. Being able to live as an ambassador for that time is pretty life changing.” Bilinski said she hopes the experience will help her grow as a person. “I’m hoping to become a stronger more confident person in the future so that I can go into international studies and so I can develop more,” she said. “It’s a lot of work and dedication, but it’s definitely worth it.”
Each student will visit their host family’s local Rotary Club where members will hear each student do a presentation about Canada and Barrie in the country’s national language. “I’ve been learning through books and through friends teaching me through Skype,” Bilinski said. “It’s the best for me because I’ve been learning slang and the most comfortable use of the language.” A language barrier isn’t something McLaurin expects to encounter, but she is interested in learning some finer points if the Belgium language, which is comprised of Dutch, French and German. “I’ve been in the extended French program for a while now,” she said. “My writing and reading is good, but I’m interested in finding out the differences between my accent compared to theirs.”
As the two students prepare to leave the country on Friday, exchange students from Finland and Croatia are set to call Barrie home for the next year. “One of the important things about this program is that we do spend a year orienting and preparing the kids,” Dean said. “They participate on weekend orientations with other exchange students so they head out already having a network of close friends involved in the exchange experience and great relationships to share with throughout their time in the program”
Families seeking more information can contact Eric Dean at edean@rogers.com or visit the exchange website of the Rotary Club of Barrie-Huronia at www.rotaryexchange.ca.