Speaker: Barbara introduced our speaker for the day.
Michael Craig was appointed MT&T’s Regional Manager for operations in Elmsdale-Truro-Amherst in October 1999 and joined the Truro Rotary Club in 2000. Michael joined for business networking reasons, but was impressed with Rotary’s projects and the Rotarians he met in the Truro and Amherst clubs. After he was transferred back to Halifax in 2002, Michael re-joined Rotary at Halifax Harbourside in 2003.
Michael’s career continued along at Bell Aliant during the 2000s, where he served as Director of Corporate Performance and Corporate Planning. Over the same period of time, Michael served as Secretary, Vice-President and President of his Rotary Club.
In 2007, Michael’s family hosted their first exchange student. The experience was very positive and, since then, Michael, his wife Vicky, and son Matthew have hosted an exchange student almost every year.
Michael retired from Bell Aliant / Bell Canada in November 2017, after a 30 year career.
Michael is currently serving as Rotary District Chair for Youth Exchange and Youth Service, in the all-important “find a successor” second year of a three-year commitment. Michael is here today to speak about the new Short Term (Summer) Exchange program.
Michael outlined the various element of the youth programs offered by Rotary and explained how they all focused in the area of Peace and Conflict resolution. He congratulated the Rotary Club of Truro for our long term participation in RYLA and Adventure in Citizenship as well as for our two Interact Clubs.
The Rotary Short Term exchange is a new concept that District 7820 is trying for the first time this year. It is different from the regular Youth Exchange Program in that it is really a summer Family to Family cultural exchange for young adults between the ages of 14 to 19. No school is involved.
He went over the program in detail, but in essence students apply and once accepted may participate in the program if a suitable host family can be arranged. The inbound student will stay with the host family for the agreed time (between 2 and 4 weeks) and then the inbound and outbound student will travel to the other hosts home for the same amount of time before returning on their own. It is up to the host family to manage what activities they will do with their students.
Rotary Clubs are responsible for promoting the program, taking the training, selecting the students and acting as a safety net in case of issues. Host families are subject to inspection and background checks for student safety. There is a $200 fee payable by the club as well as a matching $200 the student's family will have to pay to enroll. This money covers the cost of training and materials.
The travel costs are the responsibility of the student and their family and are estimated at about $2500 depending on the country. Clubs are not responsible for this cost unless they wish to help the student and their family.
Michael stated that even though this exchange was for a shorter time than the regular exchange, it will still be a transformative experience for the the young person traveling.
There were a number of questions about the program and considerable interest from members.
Michael was thanked by Brian Matthews.
The Rotary Club of Truro held their annual Summer social at the summer home of Richard and Maralyn Bowness on Shortts Lake on Sunday Aug 19th.
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