An Experience with Group Study Exchange
Posted
on Aug 23, 2011
 |
If you wanted proof that Group Study Exchange is an effective Rotary program, you needed to go no further than to listen to our speaker, Catherine Tudor, when she spoke of her experiences with the District 9800 Group Study Exchange team to District 2380 in Sweden in 2009. |
The purpose of Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is to provide a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers. For five weeks, 4 team members and their Rotarian leader, experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.
Catherine is a Bachelor of Speech Pathology and a Master of Education. She works as a Speech Pathologist with a Community Health provider. The Rotary Club of Canterbury sponsored her. She has travelled extensively, and worked in the Philippines where she was a member of Rotaract. She has travelled on a Youth Challenge trip to Costa Rica, worked in the Australian outback with Aboriginals and joined a Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition in Nepal.
Also in this team was Koren Harvey, who was sponsored by our club. So she too, had the opportunity of the experiences that Catherine outlined to us.
Southern Sweden was the area covered by this team, starting at Gothenburg and traveling this very beautiful area extensively, visiting 15 Rotary Clubs and meeting more than 150 Rotarians and their families.
Catherine was able to study speech therapy practices and was gratified to find that the problems of Sweden are similar to those she deals with and that their approach is also similar to those taken in this country. Even to the point of working with migrants from the Horn of Africa and the use of sign language to assist recognition as widely practiced as in Australia but, of course, the language was different.
The team also had the opportunity to visit factories producing glass, paper and steel and many smaller plants and to observe the people in those occupations. They were impressed by the absolute dignity of the workers in even seemingly menial work. One aspect she noticed was that some of the more extreme safety practices of this country were not present in Sweden, yet their accident rate is low.
The home hosting with Swedish families was very gratifying, to see how they lived and survived their breakfasts of cheese, eggs, caviar and yoghurt and more. Catherine’s favourite hosts were Sven and Margita. He was a retired potato farmer with a flair for invention. The one he interested Catherine in, was a toilet that required a minimum water flush. But Maragita had the most effect on her with her sturdy Nordic ponies that they rode while she was there, with their calming influence and gentle qualities, so much so, that Catherine is now heavily involved with Riding for the Disabled as she sees it as a great contribution to the welfare of the disabled.
On her return she has become further involved in Rotary, having been influential in starting the Rotary Club of Melbourne Park.
Listening to Catherine you couldn’t help appreciating what a contribution the G.S.E .program has made to her life, as well as to all the others on that trip. Long may we support this wonderful program of Rotary.