International Youth Exchange
The Hanover Rotary Club participates, along with many other Rotary Clubs throughout the world, in an international youth exchange program dedicated to the philosophy that intercultural understanding cements a solid foundation for cooperative and prosperous relationships among nations.
Our club generally provides significant financial support each year to one, two or three selected Hanover High School students each year who are placed with families overseas that participate in the international youth exchange network. Applicants seek participation in the program in the fall of the sophomore year in high school and spend their junior high school year abroad. The students participating learn a new way of living, a great deal about themselves, and, in most cases, a new language. They also serve as ambassadors of the United States, its culture and ideas. An entertaining side light of the program for the Rotary Club is the reading of the letters we receive during the year from the children we have sent abroad.
The Rotary Club also sponsors school year visits to Hanover by students from abroad, arranging for living accommodations with cooperating Upper Valley families and for occasional recreational opportunities. Students visiting in this program frequently speak to a Club luncheon.
