District Rotary Clubs are looking for the cream of the area’s crop of professionals to send on a 30-day Group Study Exchange next year to South Korea.
Applications are being taken now through early October for a northeast Kansas team that will be made up of young professionals aged 25 through 40, according to Emporian Jack Havenhill, a Sunrise Rotary Club member who is co-chairperson of the Rotary District 5710 exchange program.
The Kansas team will accompany a Korean team back to Korea after it visits northeast Kansas from April 15 through May 15.
“This is not like exchanging high school students,” Havenhill said. “These are people who are young professionals or business people, and they must be non-Rotarians; they cannot be related to Rotarians.”
The schedule could be rigorous, but the experience should be rewarding.
The Kansas team will be similar to a five-member team from India that visited earlier this year, he said. That team spent time touring businesses, industries and educational institutions from the Kansas City area to Emporia, with stops in-between, as they exchanged professional information with their hosts.
“Not only did this team from India learn how we do it here, but we also learned how they do it there,” Havenhill said. “That’s the exchange of it.”
Applicants must be able to complete the full 30 days of the team’s visit to South Korea. A team of Rotarians will select a team leader, who will be a member of Rotary, and the team members. The Kansas team will stay in Korean Rotary members’ homes during the visit.
Most of the expenses are paid by Rotary, Havenhill said. Those expenses include transportation and meals, as well as some unexpected costs that may be incurred because of late flights or similar problems.
Team members will pay for their own souvenirs and other incidental expenses, such as passports.
Applicants will be chosen early, Havenhill said, because of the time involved in team selection and training of the members.
Those chosen to go will receive some basic training in language, Korean history and the culture of South Korea, “so that you don’t put people in the situation of where they make a faux pas because they don’t know,” he said.
In the United States, for example, a guest can say “No, thank you,” if he or she does not want food.
“That just means ‘no, thank you,’” Havenhill said. “But in India, it means that the host is supposed to find some other food. So, the problem is if you say, ‘No, thank you,’ they’ll keep trying to find you something to eat, whereas if you take a small helping and just play with it on your plate, you’re all right.
“There are all kinds of little things worked out and, of course, you have time for the team members to get to know each other and to understand what the ground rules of being a team member are,” he said.
Information also will be taken and provided to Korean hosts about Kansas team members’ allergies, food needs if vegetarianism is involved, and other personal traits.
Applicants must meet these criteria:
F Currently employed for at least two years in any recognized business or profession on a full-time basis to have the maximum long-term impact on their career development
F 25 to 40 years of age at the time of application
F Work or live in the sending district
F Citizenship in the country in which they reside.
Applicants also must be: in good health, neat in appearance and able to express themselves clearly and logically, of a sound general educational background and have cultural awareness, clearly enthusiastic about chosen vocation and possess outstanding vocational skills, open-minded and tolerant, and able to travel four to six weeks with employers’ consent, among other requirements.
“It’s important that the employer feel that these things are worthwhile and that they can spare the individual for that period of time,” Havenhill said.
Team members are expected to participate in study exchange activities; independent travel is not an option, he said.
More information, or applications, may be had by calling Havenhill at 342-7944.