Flying out last Friday, outbound Rotary Nowra exchange student, Isaac Graham–Hickman is now in Finland to spend 12 months with a Rotary Club and three host families in Turku, the oldest city in Finland.
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At last week’s Rotary Nowra meeting, the Vincentia High School student, who was also celebrating his 16th birthday, could not contain his excitement of meeting his host families and making new friends at the high school where he will attend for the next 12 months learning the Finnish culture and language.
Rotary Nowra President, Polly Hill, and Youth Director, Jacquie Cousley, presented Isaac with a container of kangaroo pins that he can give to those special people he meets and also use to exchange badges and other mementos with exchange students from around the world.
He was also given some Rotary Nowra banners as well as some picturesque books of the Shoalhaven to present to the Mayor of Turku and Presidents of Rotary clubs around Turku where he will make presentations describing his family, school and general life in the Shoalhaven and Australia.
Like all other Rotary Exchange students Isaac has left Australia as a nervous young teenager, with an empty green Rotary International jacket and will return in 12 months as a young man of the world with his green jacket laden with badges and memorabilia from the people he has met and places he has been.
Already Isaac has demonstrated that he will be a fine ambassador for Rotary, the Shoalhaven, his school and family.
The 2017 Rotary Nowra outbound students, Makenzie Veale and Holly Weyman have just returned from their year’s exchange in the USA and Taiwan respectively.
As soon as they have settled back into their normal Australian way of life they will be guest speakers at Rotary to talk about their exciting and very different adventures over the past 12 months.