As you know, Rotary’s reason for being has long been one designed to promote peace in the world through cultural interaction with other nations. The rationale for this has been rather straightforward: Expose Rotarians to the values of other societies by putting in place
opportunities for them to do so directly. This is what would lead to the development of a
variety of exchange programs, all designed to encourage international understanding and,
hopefully, cooperation.
Last week, Gary Rohrbach talked about the club’s participation in one of these endeavors--the youth exchange programs. Next week, Dee Eng will review the club’s recent involvement in Friendship Exchanges. Today, I want to touch upon another of these outreach efforts—the Group Study Abroad Exchange Program or GSE.
The GSE program began in 1965. It was launched by the RF as a way to send teams of young business and professional people abroad to learn about a country’s culture. How? By studying how their professions were actually practiced in that country.
The teams typically consisted of a Rotarian leader and four non-Rotarians between the ages of 25 and 40. The exchanges usually lasted for four to six weeks, during which time the team members studied the host country’s institutions, economy and culture. Participants stayed with host families to experience the local culture, participated in social events and went on cultural and site tours. Teams were also expected to visit Rotary clubs in the host district to give presentations and thereby build lasting relationships.
The RF provided a travel grant for the most economical round trip airfare for each team
member, while Rotarians in the host district covered the costs of lodging, meals, and travel
within the district.
Over the course of almost fifty years, the ERC participated in several of these programs, either by helping to host visiting GSE teams here in District 7430 or by providing a Rotarian team leader. For example, the late Carl Gingrich was the team leader when we sent a group to Argentina in 1988. In 1993, we participated in hosting a team from India. In 2004, I was the outgoing team leader to Granada, St. Lusia, Barbados and Trinidad-Tobago in the southern Caribbean.
In 2013, RI stopped their support of the GSE program. Why? In part because the strategic
emphasis of Rotary had changed. And in part, because it was increasing difficult to attract
young professionals to participate, given the amount of time they would be away from their
jobs. As such, the GSE program has been replaced by newer programs, such as the Global Grants Scholarship Program. This is for graduate level students studying abroad in one of Rotary’s six Areas of Focus.
The discontinuation of the GSE program was highly controversial. In our case, our club
petitioned RI to reverse course and go back to supporting the GSE program. Some districts
attempted to continue the program on their own but it was difficult to maintain them without the financial support from RI. And, so, GSE went away. But its spirit of vocational and cultural interaction continues through the District’s Youth and Friendship Exchange programs.
Roger Whitcomb
