About Rotary Youth Exchange

Rotary Youth Exchange is a worldwide program involving more than 80 countries with some 8000 students participating each year.

The first seeds for Rotary International’s Youth Exchange Program were sown by the Rotary Club of Copenhagen, with a small-scale European program that started in 1929. A decade later saw the first the student exchanges to take place in the Americas. In 1972, Rotary International (RI) endorsed the program to clubs world-wide as a “worthwhile international activity”. The program has grown into what is a very active and vibrant program that is available to students world-wide today. 

Rotary’s District 7070 administers and offers Rotary’s long term youth exchange program. 

A long-term exchange, typically lasts a full academic year, during which time the student lives with more than one family in the host country. 

Program Objectives The Rotary Exchange Program offers young people an opportunity to study and learn about the culture of other countries with other young people under the auspices of Rotary International. 

 

The objectives of the program are:

  1. To further international goodwill and understanding by enabling students to study first-hand some of the accomplishments and problems of people in lands other than their own

  2. To enable students to student in a new academic environment for a year entirely different from their own and study courses and subjects not normally available to them in schools in their own country

  3. To have students learn another language

  4. To broaden their outlook by experiencing life from a different point of view by learning to meet and live with people of different cultures

  5. To act as a Canadian Ambassador to the people they meet on exchange and addressing Rotary Clubs, community organizations and youth groups in their host country by imparting knowledge about Canada during their year abroad

  6. To study and observe all facets of life and culture in the country where they are hosted so that on their return they can pass on that knowledge by addressing Rotary Clubs and other organizations

  7. To develop skills and confidence to last a lifetime

Ultimately, the long term exchange opportunity builds understanding, tolerance and acceptance of cultures around the world. Each exchange student becomes a building block toward world peace.