Rotary ambassador starts year in Brazil

By Dan Scanlan
Staff writer

Tierney Elison should be finishing her unpacking about now, as she begins a year-long visit to Brazil.

The 15-year-old Bartram Trail High School student left Monday for a Rotary Club Youth Exchange with a family in the Portuguese-speaking South American country, a journey started months ago when she was selected after completing a 40-page application.

Elison said before she left that she was a bit nervous but still excited about life in a country with rain forests and such cosmopolitan cities as Rio de Janeiro.

"It is a learning experience, something I can use when I am older," she said. "I want to grow and change, get an exchange of scenery as well as learn another language and become bicultural.

"I am so grateful and feel like I am indebted to Rotary for the rest of my life."

Elison's mother, Cathy, said she initially was a bit sad about her daughter living in Brazil for a year. But the family lived in Portugal from 1992 to 1995 as part of her husband's Navy tour, so her daughter should adapt quickly, she said.

"When she first came to me with the idea, I said, 'You go girl,'" her mother said. "She also knows Portuguese is not an easy language. ... She will be faced with total immersion."

About 8,000 high school students from around the world participate in Rotary exchanges each year, learning the language and becoming part of the community. But the program hadn't been done in the 12-county Northeast Florida Rotary Club region for a decade when program Chairman Al Kalter moved to Fruit Cove three years ago. He had been involved in exchange programs in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1990.

Area clubs sent seven students overseas in 2001, three from the Jacksonville area. Seven more head out this year, including Elison and Bishop Kenny High School student Shaina Moore, who leaves for her exchange trip to France in mid-August.

"We [Syracuse's club] had hosted five times and met so many outstanding kids going in and out, so I was surprised to find they had not done any of that here," Kalter said.

After hearing Kalter speak about the program at school in November, Elison asked if an exchange to Portugal was possible. It wasn't, but a host family in Brazil was, and the Mandarin Rotary Club gave her $500 for expenses.

Kalter said exchange students are supposed to "be an ambassador for her family, country, school and for Rotary."

Elison said she hopes to visit the rain forest and not get homesick.

"The process of saying goodbye is hard," she said. "It is a long time. But I will be back."

Staff writer Dan Scanlan can be reached at 359-4549 or via e-mail at dscanlan@jacksonville.com.