A local youth has lots of tales to tell after a life-changing 10 months in Europe, thanks to the Rotary Club of Okotoks.
Ella Day, a Foothills Composite High School student, spent the last school year at Carmelcollege, a high school in Emmen, Netherlands.
The trip was part of the Rotary Club of Okotoks' youth exchange program. Day, who left for the Netherlands in August of last year, was the first student to be sponsored by the program since 2020.
"This year has really opened my eyes to how big the world is and how it's all interconnected in its own ways," said Day, who was joined in the Netherlands by 17 fellow Rotary youth from around the world.
"Now I have connections in so many places around the world... it's crazy how much of a connection you can make with someone so quickly, and I didn't know it was possible to feel so connected to so many people around the world until I had this experience."
There are over 46,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide, with 1.4 million members across the globe. Emmen, with a population of approximately 107,000, has three Rotary Clubs alone, said Day.
"I really owe a lot of my success to my friends in my Rotary Club and also just the Netherlands Rotary who put in a lot of effort to make sure we learned the language."
Thanks to the program and her time in Emmen, Day went from struggling to learn languages to attaining functional proficiency in Dutch.
"Dutch is not necessarily an easy language to learn compared to Spanish or French, but it's supposedly easier to learn if you speak English in person, because it has ties to German and English," she said.
"I made the conscious decision throughout the year to spend more time with [Dutch people] my own age, rather than the other exchange students, because I felt that I would learn more about the culture, the language and just overall have a better, more Dutch experience."
Besides the culture and language, the setting felt very different from home in many ways, said Day, noting that Canada is nearly 240 times larger than the Netherlands.
"There's a lot more freedom not only in the Netherlands but also within Europe," she said. "I could just get on the train, and then three hours later I would be on a completely other side of the country, so I had a lot of freedom to explore the whole country and everything it had to offer."
The 10-month trip was certainly eventful, with adventures ranging from travelling across Europe to visit nearly a dozen countries, including France, Greece and Italy, to catching a glimpse of Willem-Alexander, King of the Netherlands, during the national holiday of Koningsdag.
Day aims to study international relations next year, and her goal is to become a consulate negotiator for the United Nations.
"I want to learn more about [the world] and help others who are going through global disasters or horrible economic changes. I want to make a difference on a global scale," she said, adding that she aims to continue her involvement with the Rotary Club.
The Okotoks club sponsors one youth between the ages of 15 and 18 annually for the youth exchange program. The next outbound exchange student, Maya Neukom, will soon depart to Sardinia, an island off the coast of Italy, for her exchange year.
Applications are now open for the 2025-26 exchange year. Anyone interested in learning more can contact the Rotary Club of Okotoks.
The Rotary Club of Okotoks is involved in many other community programs and projects domestically, such as its many youth leadership opportunities and the upcoming construction of a wheelchair-accessible swing set at Bill Robertson Park this summer.
