Learning to fly!
With cultural exchange programmes gaining popularity, more students from the state are travelling to other parts of the world for a few months or even a year! AT speaks to a few of them and comes back with some wonderful stories
PAARTH JOSHI
You no longer need a student or an H1 visa or even pass the Highly Skilled Migrant test, to be among cobbled streets and Tudor houses in Chester. Relishing 32 varieties of Italian cheese or those vintage wines from French cellars, doesn’t require special permits either! You just need to be a ‘cultural exchange ambassador’, where you live and interact with families in another country. And if these ambassadors are to be believed, the exchange programmes are not merely travel experiences but they give one a ‘global’ outlook to life.
After one such six-week exchange programme to England and Wales — Ritu Agarwal, an English teacher in Surat — is all praise for this trend that’s gaining popularity. “Before I traveled outside India I had certain notions about the other parts of the world. But such a programme makes you feel that the World is one,” says Agarwal, adding: “It might make you compare your country on ‘foreign parameters’ but then that’s good. You see cleaner countries and want to stop littering your own nation.” While for Agarwal, it is about imbibing polite behaviour, Nakul Sharma considers exchange programmes as a platform to break stereotyped images of countries. “I was asked whether we Indians still travel on elephants,” says Sharma who went to Taiwan and Sweden, “Our country had a skewed image: Lots of pollution, exotic yet orthodox culture. Exchange programmes help other countries learn better about ours as well.”
Agrees Pathik Bhatt, an AIESEC-Vadodara member who undertook one such programme in Ukraine, “They sensitise the youth about the problems of small and developing nations. It’s a great way to make people relate to the youth in other countries,” says Bhatt. Exchange programmes, mentions Bhatt, also help in clearing misconceptions. “Because Taj Mahal resembles Turkish buildings in certain ways, most kids I interacted with in Ukraine thought Taj Mahal was in Turkey. The way Mother Teresa dressed, on the other hand, made them believe she was from Macedonia.”
Shivani Thakkar who undertook a programme for a year in Connecticut, describes her stay in USA as, “a practical lesson in learning about different cultures. You live with a few families and realise that their ideologies are similar to ours. Nothing is different except perhaps the language and skin-colour.” It’s something what 11-year-old Parisha Maniar learnt from her trip to Japan. “Living away from your parents makes you independent but more than that, it teaches you to shed your inhibitions and be more social, despite cultural differences,” says Maniar.
Anyone for the Irish tap dance?
PAARTH JOSHI
You no longer need a student or an H1 visa or even pass the Highly Skilled Migrant test, to be among cobbled streets and Tudor houses in Chester. Relishing 32 varieties of Italian cheese or those vintage wines from French cellars, doesn’t require special permits either! You just need to be a ‘cultural exchange ambassador’, where you live and interact with families in another country. And if these ambassadors are to be believed, the exchange programmes are not merely travel experiences but they give one a ‘global’ outlook to life.
After one such six-week exchange programme to England and Wales — Ritu Agarwal, an English teacher in Surat — is all praise for this trend that’s gaining popularity. “Before I traveled outside India I had certain notions about the other parts of the world. But such a programme makes you feel that the World is one,” says Agarwal, adding: “It might make you compare your country on ‘foreign parameters’ but then that’s good. You see cleaner countries and want to stop littering your own nation.” While for Agarwal, it is about imbibing polite behaviour, Nakul Sharma considers exchange programmes as a platform to break stereotyped images of countries. “I was asked whether we Indians still travel on elephants,” says Sharma who went to Taiwan and Sweden, “Our country had a skewed image: Lots of pollution, exotic yet orthodox culture. Exchange programmes help other countries learn better about ours as well.”
Agrees Pathik Bhatt, an AIESEC-Vadodara member who undertook one such programme in Ukraine, “They sensitise the youth about the problems of small and developing nations. It’s a great way to make people relate to the youth in other countries,” says Bhatt. Exchange programmes, mentions Bhatt, also help in clearing misconceptions. “Because Taj Mahal resembles Turkish buildings in certain ways, most kids I interacted with in Ukraine thought Taj Mahal was in Turkey. The way Mother Teresa dressed, on the other hand, made them believe she was from Macedonia.”
Shivani Thakkar who undertook a programme for a year in Connecticut, describes her stay in USA as, “a practical lesson in learning about different cultures. You live with a few families and realise that their ideologies are similar to ours. Nothing is different except perhaps the language and skin-colour.” It’s something what 11-year-old Parisha Maniar learnt from her trip to Japan. “Living away from your parents makes you independent but more than that, it teaches you to shed your inhibitions and be more social, despite cultural differences,” says Maniar.
Anyone for the Irish tap dance?
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