More Rotary Facts - Acronyms 4

GSE - Group Study Exchange was a highly successful programme where 4 or 5 people between 25 years and forty years of age were able to travel to another Rotary District in the World for a period of four to six weeks.

 

The group had as their leader a Rotarian. The visit to another District consisted primarily of vocational visits that were aligned with the vocation of the participants. The hosting District would send a team back to the same District.

 

Whilst on the exchange the group would present to Rotary Clubs, usually up to five meetings a week. They were hosted by Rotarians and their families. The GSE has been replaced with Vocational Exchanges now, all the participants have a vocation in a similar area, eg, medical, teaching, fire etc.

Beth Woolley from Canberra organised the VTF exchanges with the Pacific Islands and all exchanges were involved in midwifery. This exchange was done over a period of three years. The nurses from the Pacific benefitted from having experience working in maternity departments in hospitals here. Australian nurses were able to take their knowledge to the Pacific islands.

 

YEP - Youth Exchange Programme or sometimes referred to as GYE - Global Youth Exchange. This programme enabled students usually in year 12 to go to another country for twelve months to attend school.

 

The students would be hosted by three or four families over that period. A Rotary Club would interview potential students to participate in the exchange. A Rotary Club sending out a student would host an incoming student.

 

This programme has been operating for over fifty years and has been extremely popular. It has been on hold since COVID.  The programme will recommence once it has been deemed safe for young people to travel and participate in the programme.

 

NYSF - National Youth Science Forum this programme is held over a two- week period in January each year. Two groups are held in Canberra and recently one has been conducted in Perth. It has limited numbers and is very popular with students from all over Australia.

Potential attendees go through an interview with a local Rotary Club before their application goes to a national committee who select the final attendees. The National Youth Science Forum fortnight allows students from Year 11 to attend a variety of science activities to help them decide which science area they would like to pursue once they have completed Year 12. Rotarians from across Australia will attend the fortnight as host parents, act as counsellors etc over the period.