My name is Mats Lind and I am a former high school science teacher from the city of Norrköping in Rotary district 2410 in Sweden. Due to the pandemic and sometimes somewhat complicated rules for obtaining a Swedish residence permit, there have not been that many student exchanges between Sweden and NZ in recent years. From contacts on the south island I heard a while ago, that the districts there will not participate in the RYE program next season either. Last week, however, I received an email with the tip that the three districts 9910, 9920, and 9930 seem to have started again after the pandemic. When I have now visited the districts' websites, I see that it is correct.
The fact that I am curious about this is because I have a 17-year-old daughter, Lisa Lind,
who has long dreamed of becoming an exchange student for one year downunder, as both her twin
brothers had been before, one in NZ and one in Tasmania. She is now accepted into the swedish
RYE program and should be included in Rotary's exchange student database. The club Norrköping
Louis de Geer (31030), which sponsors her, has arranged all host families and school place for
the student who comes here to us.
She has had NZ as her first choice, but unfortunately Rotary Sweden has so far had difficulty finding a host club.
Therefore, I decided to try to help and investigate the interest in exchange with Sweden myself,
by asking NZ clubs directly.
My hope is that it might arouse the interest of some club that has not thought about it, but would
like to receive a Swedish student to gain more knowledge about that country where polar bears are said
to roam the streets. And that this possible interest then comes to the attention of decision-makers.
In your club there may also be young people who have not gotten around to applying, but who would think
it would be exciting to experience Sweden far away in northern Europe. The application period for district
9920 doesn't end until April 30, as I understand it. For 9930 I see March 31, so there is more of a rush.
District 9910, on the other hand, appears to have already closed its period in December.
I don't know how it works here, but in our district in Sweden, the application deadline was moved forward this year.
Our countries are not really in phase when it comes to seasons and school years. Your students arrive in
Sweden in January 2025, but Swedish students need to have a place with you already in July 2024.
Since the RYE program is an exchange between two districts and not between two clubs, as far as I understand,
our club in Norrköping will not receive a student from the club Lisa is coming to. And then maybe it is also
the case that a club that receives a student does not have to send someone away, but another club in the
district does this instead.
The students' final placement in Sweden is decided centrally in Stockholm together with the chairperson at the district level.
The person in Sweden who takes care of the contacts with NZ and Australia is Governor Olof Frisk, and he is
the one who has been in contact with the chairpersons of your districts.
Of course, this email is a bit of a start on the wrong end, but I'm sending this off anyway and we'll see if it leads anywhere.
I have tried to look for suitable email addresses on Rotary clubs' websites and Facebook, as well as district lists.
I have also used email forms, so there is then a risk that many of the emails on my list will end up as duplicates.
They can end up completely wrong, such as to out-of-date email addresses or if the information has not been updated,
end up with people who no longer have any connection to the subject in question. I apologize for this and hope for your
indulgence. It's just a matter of some misoriented ones and zeroes.
If you who are reading this, are not the right person regarding the club's possible youth exchange, then maybe you know
someone else who is and can forward this email. Grateful for that.
Now a little about Swedish Lisa who is looking for a recipient club in NZ:
She grew up on a farm with highland cattle, sheep and horses deep in the forest outside the city of Norrköping, about 160km
south of the capital Stockholm. She is now studying and in the future she wants to be able to work with, for example, health
care for both body and soul. Becoming a police officer is another option. Possibly a riding one, because
in her spare time, a great interest is riding and looking after her two horses.
She has social skills and finds it easy to hang out with both animals and her many human friends.
Other things she does are working out at the gym and being outdoors in nature.
However, she is not as crazy about fly fishing as her twin brothers, but you can be nice anyway. If she manages to get to NZ,
which I consider to be the number one place for that kind of fishing in the world, she might go as crazy as them.
You are welcome to reply to this message and if there is an opportunity to receive Lisa Lind, please also contact your district's
chair for Rotary's Youth Exchange, so they will be made aware of this.
From what I can see it's for 9910-Jenn Wong (or Sandra Woods?), 9920-John Fothergill and 9930-Paul Higson.
Kind regards from Mats in Sweden +46-705088049 (WhatsApp) email: rye@khult.se
Pictures are showing:
A close-up of Lisa, How the family celebrated Lisa's 17th birthday in January with an overnight stay in a tent
on the ice and a picture from NZ March 2023 of the person writing all this.
