So Phoenix Sister Cities has what is called a Youth Ambassador Exchange Program (YAEP) where we send sophomores and juniors to one of our 9 sister cities for three weeks over the summer. While the students are there they stay with a family and experience that country's culture. After their three weeks abroad, the students then come back to Phoenix and host a Youth Ambassador from the other country here in Arizona for three weeks. I think this is a really cool program and such a good opportunity for high school students.
However, I'm not in high school and so the exciting aspects of the program are not for my enjoyment. Instead, I have to do little things here and there that can only be described as a little bit frustrating. I don't do much work at all with the YAEP program, that is another intern's responsibility, and she always has so much work to do! The marketing for the program has begun and applications are due at the beginning of December, so that intern is always busy.
The other interns and I are supposed to be helping out with the marketing for the program as well, by signing up to contact different high schools regarding how to get information to the students about the exchange program. It sounds easy, but the only thing is that the high schools I've contacted haven't gotten back to me. So this morning I went to the high schools in person to drop off some information. After being redirected to a district office to get approval for disseminating information and after leaving the papers with people who say they will get the information to the right contact, I can only hope that someone calls me back and that the students are informed about the program. Our boss ideally wants us to set up a time to go speak to students at the school, but the only problem is that we can't do that unless we get permission, and we can't get permission unless we can talk to someone. So, given that the application deadline is just about a month away, it is frustrating trying to get the information out there when there isn't much to work with and little time to do so. Hopefully we'll get enough interested students to apply in the next few weeks though -- that is all we can hope for.
What a great way for those high school students to learn Elizabeth! I think they come back to Phoenix with amazing learned experiences to talk about. I believe they share with you many different cultures and what they learned from those students. I'm not an exchange student, but I encountered many culture shocks when I arrived to this country. Everything was quite different... from food to lifestyle; school system to sports and so on. Sometimes there are so many excited things to discuss and so many things that you do not you feel like to talk about. However, we become aware of them. They help us understand the culture and its people.
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