There were several YEX students visiting our meeting to hear Marco's and Andrea's talk. It was great to see them all decked out in their pin-and-badge-covered blazers.

Frank Burns introduced our speakers, Marco Bersani, our inbound student from Brazil, and Andrea Barr, our outbound student who is going to Denmark later this summer. Frank reminded us that Calgary West has a standing tradition of supporting youth programs both locally and internationally.

Our students from District 5360 exchange with students from 16 non-English speaking countries throughout Europe, SE Asia and Latin America. The first youth exchanges began between European countries in 1927 and with California and Latin America in 1939. The Youth Exchange Program became an official Rotary International program in 1972.

-currently 10,000 students participate in the program in over 60 countries
-this program is open to both Rotarian and non-Rotarian families
-this a three-year commitment for the students as they have a training year, their year as a student and the third year they assist with the training of the outgoing students.

Andrea Barr
Our outbound student, Andrea Barr, gave her presentation first. This is a first draft of what she plans on presenting to her host club in Denmark. Andrea is leaving for her year in Denmark in July and is looking forward to her visit there. She wants to learn their culture, language and ways of life. She is also looking forward to making new friends and hopes to return home with a better idea of what she wants to do with her life in the future.

Andrea broke her presentation into three parts: Canada, Calgary and "Me", a section about herself.

Under her first heading, Andrea did a great job of outlining the history and some details of Canada. She spoke of how we celebrate Canada Day on July 1st, when she and her family would go camping and her other favourite holiday, Halloween, when she and her friends would dress up and go trick or treating. She now dresses up at school along with her classmates.

Her next section gave a brief history of Calgary and how she loves the Calgary Stampede parade and all of the hoopla that goes on during this time in Calgary.

Andrea's final section of her presentation was about herself, her family, friends and her dog and hobbies. She had several pictures to support her presentation.

Andrea told us about her mum, dad and younger brother. She loved her summer trips to their cabin in Manitoba where she visited with her grandparents and other relatives. Andrea loves to ski and races competitively as well and has taught younger kids at Calgary Olympic Park. As well, she loves to camp, hike, swim and tubing. She also likes to participate in track and field events and volleyball.

She showed several pictures of her grade nine graduation and her school trip to Washington, DC. Volunteering plays a large part in Andrea's life, volunteering at The Mustard Seed and Inn From the Cold being two of her favourite places to volunteer.

Andrea's presentation was very well done and should be enjoyed by her host club.

Marco Bersani
The second speaker was Marco Antonio Junqueira Bersani, our happy, energetic inbound student from Brazil, who seems to enjoy life to the fullest.

Marco also showed us his PowerPoint presentation. Starting with a picture of his pet parrot and he assured us that the parrot speaks continually! Marco then went on to show us some great pictures of his home city, Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. Portuguese is the language spoken there.

Brasilia is one of only two planned cities in the world. The other being Washington, DC. Brasilia became the capital of Brazil in 1960 and all three branches of the government are in Brasilia. Downtown Brasilia is built in the form of an airplane when seen from the sky. The amenities are not spread out as the government is in one area, hotels in another, etc.

One of Marco's favourite things to do is hang out with his friends at the large Brasilia shopping mall and to ride the water slide which is called the Insane and happens to be the largest water slide in the world.

Marco is very interested in a project called Tamar, where he helps to protect Turtles. Marco is a boy scout and a member of Demolay, young Masons. With the Demolay he had the opportunity to visit the Amazon where he stayed in an army camp and visited with local tribes.

Marco showed us pictures of his parents and mentioned that his mother spent a year in New Jersey as a youth exchange student. Marco ended his presentation by telling us that his 93-year old grandmother told him, "Do not worry, I will wait for you".

Bruce Taylor thanked Andrea and Marcos for their wonderful presentations.

reported by Pauline and Garth Evans