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The International Friendship Tour

What's it all about?

The District Tour is an annual event organized by the Youth Exchange Committee of Rotary District 5080. Details of this year's tour are available on the "Tours and Travel" Page. The tour is conducted each year to:

To provide opportunities for acquaintances and friendships between the residents of our district and the young people from many countries who are living here this year.

To promote Rotary Youth Exchange.

To extend the Rotary spirit of International friendship and understanding into the communities visited.

ACTIVITIES

Try to plan at least one activity that gives the members of your club, or others in your community, a chance to get to know the students on a one-on-one basis. The students will naturally gather together in their own group, and this is fine, but a primary purpose of the tour is to create opportunities for one-on-one conversations and acquaintances. Here are a few ideas:

The single best (and maybe easiest) way to accomplish this is to assign the students to spend the night in the homes of Rotarians, or others in your community. This will give everyone an opportunity to get to know each other.

Have a picnic or other group meal. If you do this, try to think of a way (assigning seats, or maybe a planned activity before or after the meal) that will get the students to mix with the others in attendance.

Have the students participate in some community or club project, or a community activity in which members of your community will also be participating.

If you schedule recreation or a tour for the students, invite some participants from your local high school as well, such as students who are interested in international affairs or student exchange.

Give the tour coordinator a call if you want to talk about other ideas and possibilities.

The students like to be exposed to the history, geography, industry and local attractions of the areas they visit, but also need some time for recreation, relaxing, etc. Too many structured tours can make for a trying experience, and a lack of enthusiasm by the students could leave the host with a wrong impression.

Shopping in malls or freetime is OK, but students don’t need more than 1½ hours of this at any one time.

Locations for group recreational activities (e.g. basketball, swimming, soccer, dancing) or for general socializing should be provided if they are available. As mentioned above, try to get some members of your community involved in these activities, as well.

Because the weather can be very nice - or very wet - alternate activities, or alternate locations, should be planned for.

If possible, try to provide a location (maybe with a piano) where the students can gather to practice for the Youth Exchange Talent Show at the District Conference.

All of the students will be serious pin collectors, and if pins of the hosting communities can be provided this will be very much appreciated.

ACCOMMODATIONS

If the students will be staying as a group in a church hall or school gym, tumbling mats or something similar should be provided to lessen the impact of wooden or concrete floors! Also, separate toilet and shower facilities must be available for male and female students. In the past it has not been necessary to provide separate sleeping areas, and this should not be required if there is adequate supervision.

If the students will be billeted to individual homes they must be assigned to specific homes before their arrival. This saves a lot of time and confusion when the bus arrives. You will receive the full list of students well in advance of the tour.

Students may be billeted in pairs or small groups, i.e. more than one student per home.

The host club must provide adequate on-site supervision (at least one male and one female) when students are staying as a group in a church hall, school gym, etc.

Billets or other separate arrangements must be made for the tour chaperones. Tour chaperones will be a husband and wife Rotary couple.

MEALS

To avoid the possibility of a steady diet of hamburgers, you are asked to indicate the general nature of group meals (e.g. spaghetti, beef-on-a-bun, pizza, hamburgers, etc.) You could be asked by the Tour Coordinator to change a meal if there is too much duplication.

Where bag lunches are to be made to take on the bus, the students are quite capable of making their own, provided they are given the necessary ingredients. Some kind of fruit, and something to drink, should always be included if possible.

PUBLICITY

One of the goals of the annual tour is to promote international student exchange, and in particular Rotary International Student Exchange. A great way to do this, and to extent awareness of the tour to the larger community, is to include one element of media coverage into the tour’s agenda. This can be as simple as inviting a local reporter to interview one or more students, or to cover a group activity. Most community newspapers (or TV in larger communities) will be glad to give some coverage to the event.

RULES & REGULATIONS

Although Rotary Exchange students are generally a great bunch of kids, they are teenagers! And teenagers around the world have lots of things in common! Therefore they should be supervised, and given guidance, as you would do with any other group of teenagers. Rotary students have also agreed to abide by specific regulations prohibiting drinking, smoking, driving, and sexual involvement.

Students should be expected to follow the directions of host parents and anyone else assigned to provide them with direction. Any disciplinary or behavior problems should immediately be brought to the attention of the tour chaperones, the tour coordinator, or members of the District Youth Exchange Committee. The students are closely watched during the tour by both Rotarians and the wider community. Any bad behavior will reflect badly on the program and detract from the primary purpose of the tour.