Douglas grad goes to Sweden in youth exchange program

Patty Salazar, a 2007 Douglas High School graduate, left July 31 to spend a year in Sweden to live and study as part of the Minden Rotary's Youth Exchange program.

She left for Sweden on July 31 and her first stop is Amsterdam. She will go on to Gottenberg and finally to Halmstad, Sweden, where she will meet her initial host family.

Besides English, Salazar speaks Spanish and German. Her trip to Sweden will give her knowledge of Swedish which will help her when she attends the University of Nevada, Reno, to major in international studies.

"We talk to her family in Sweden all the time," said Patty Salazar's mother Kelly Salazar. "Patty will be in language camp on Monday for a week to learn Swedish."

Her parents, Gabe and Kelly Salazar, hosted last year's exchange student from Austria, Chrissie Enengl, for three months and will be the initial host family for exchange student, Antoine Van den Bulke, who will arrive Aug. 12.

Van den Bulke is 17 and lives in Liege, the third-largest city in Belgium with a population of 200,000. Liege is located on the Meuse River, which flows through Belgium from France and ends in the Netherlands.

Van den Bulke is active in field hockey, soccer and tennis and takes piano lessons. His native language is French, but has studied Dutch and English as second languages.

"What these kids do is amazing," said Kelly Salazar. "It's hard being a parent and letting them go, but you know they're going to get a lot out of the experience."

The ambassadorial Rotary Youth Exchange program allows a young person to represent their home country and introduces the host family and their friends to American culture. The young people in the program have an opportunity to learn about other cultures and ideas. The youth exchange is a step in bringing the people of the world closer together while making new and potential life-long friends.

Rotary is a worldwide organization of business and professional leaders that provides humanitarian service, encourages high ethical standards in all vocations and helps build goodwill and peace in the world. Approximately 1.2 million Rotarians belong to more than 31,000 Rotary clubs located in 167 countries. The Minden Rotary Club is one of the oldest Rotary Clubs in Nevada, in existence for more than 81 years.

For more information about Rotary and the youth exchange program, contact Bob Conner at bob@rskconsulting.biz or 721-0457.