Digital News AFS Reconquista Local Chapter - July 2011

Digital News AFS Reconquista Local Chapter

Number 7, July 2011

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

Mahatma Gandhi

AFS in Reconquista E-mail: rl.reconquista@afs.org.ar  1544-4471

David Etienne, AFS Switzerland in Reconquista, having mates in Puerto de Alicante, Spain in one of many trips back in the old continent.

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Pre-Orientation Camp (in Buenos Aires)

Franco Lorenzini and Ma. Laura Buyatti are two teenagers from Reconquista who participated in the PreOrientation Camp which took place in Buenos Aires. They tell us about their expectations and their wishes.

Hi, my name is Franco Lorenzini and I am going to live my exchange experience for 11 months in Finland. I chose this country because I wanted to experience a totally different culture. When I get there, I would like to get to know the most important places and also to learn how to Snowboard and Ski. As regards my new family, I believe it is the most important part of the experience. Being able to live with them, with their customs, food, etc. would be really exciting. Knowing them, understanding their characters is also interesting, as well as they knowing me. I will be myself, so that they can receive all my love. My goal is that, by living with them, I get to know the family well and feel like they are my own, and that they accept me as another family member. In the POC I had the chance to be with two volunteers who had lived their experience in Finland, so they told me a bit about their culture and how people relate to each other. Also, there was a girl from Finland in my town too who taught me basic things about the language to make my fist months there easier.

I am MarĂ­a Laura Buyatti and I will be in Germany for 11 months. I chose Germany because I consider it to be a developed country which is pretty different to what I am used to here in Argentina. When I get to my host country, just as Franco, I would like to know new places, play different sports like Hockey. About my family, I have already been assigned to one in Bavaria. There I will have a sister my own age with whom I would like to share million of things and obviously to get on well. I am not leaving with high expectations because I can be wrong and get down or, on the contrary, think that everything is better that I expected. In the POC I could talk to one volunteer who had his exchange experience in Germany. He told me about the customs, the way people relate to each other and also how his first months were in his new family and with his new friends.

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Sergio Sanchez was with Franco and Ma. Laura in the AFS Pre-Orientation Camp (POC) for three days (9, 10 and 11/07) in Buenos Aires.

“We shared this experience with other teenagers from all over our country and also from Uruguay. This Camp was really enriching for us because it taught us a lot more about our exchange experience and about our host countries. We could also make new friends and we realised that, even though we are from the same country, we are really different. In the POC we had activities which are connected to our future experience. That is to say, about how Sergio, “Lali” and Franquito in CPO communication and living somewhere else would be, and it (Pre-Orientation Camp) made us become aware that our first months with other people, who have a different language and another culture, We are really happy about doing this will be very difficult”. intercultural exchange experience. We believe it is going to be a unique experience and it will help us mature and open our minds.

THANK YOU AFS!!!

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

July, month of AFS Goodbyes Niklas, Myrthe, Ida, Eveliina and Lisa leaving the city.

July is one of the saddest months for AFS and all the people who feel part of the Organisation. It is the time when the Exchange Students have to leave their Argentinian families, their friends and their host communities who received them not so long ago.

About one hundred people gathered at the Reconquista Bus Station last Sunday, 17th to say farewell to Niklas Schnierstein (Germany), Eveliina Valkola (Finland), Myrthe Hanckman (The Netherlands), Ida Kjoes (Norway) and Lisa Volpi (Italy) who were travelling back to Buenos Aires to get a plane which would get them to their native lands. All of them arrived in August 2010, and almost a year later, the Local Chapter accompanied them in the hardest part of the experience: saying „Adiós‟.

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Family Quatrin-Nóbile saying goodbye to Eveliina.

Family Senestrari-Schaumburg saying goodbye to Niklas.

Family Stechina-Bais saying goodbye to Myrthe

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Family Fabrissin-Vanrell saying goodbye to Ida.

Family Sartor-Sartor saying goodbye to Lisa.

Every time we have to say farewell, the same feeling of sadness and broken hearts is in the air.

The never-ending hugs, the chanting, the crying eyes and the final waving of hands are parts of this last picture which puts an end to the hardest time in the AFS experience. It is a difficult time not only for the students who are leaving a great year behind, but also for their families who hosted them. It is also a time of growth and meditation.

The AFS students left to Buenos Aires with a volunteer, Claudia Lanteri, who would accompany them in the End Of Stay Camp. This last meeting intents to prepare them emotionally for their return to their natural families, friends and country.

The AFS volunteers from Reconquista local Chapter want to thank all of you, host families, for your generosity, openness, tolerance and intercultural sensibility. All of them AFS values we promote and which were openly shown by you all during the last 11 months of intercultural sharing.

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Meet them! They arrive in August 2011

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Eight AFS Exchange Students are coming to our Local Chapter.

Seven of them will be here on Sunday, 21st August and one of them on September, 7th.

On one side, Ma. Grazia

from

there are eight young people

seven

different

countries,

who dreamt about living a year or a semester with an Argentinian family. On the other side, there

Tim

are eight families who liked the idea of living an intercultural experience in their own home, and committed themselves to receive and treat these adolescents as their own children.

Augusta

Bara

Johanna

Carlo

Laurin

Anne

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They have already met on the Internet, talked on Skype and have already exchanged photographs.

However, they still have to wait some more days to each other’s faces and hug.

That moment will be a landmark in their lives.

It means the beginning of a new life, a time to grow and enjoy something different.

That would be thanks to the AFS Experience.

The new AFS exchange students are from Italy (Carlo and Ma. Grazia), Australia (Timothy), Denmark (Augusta), Faroe Islands (Bára), Island (Johanna), Germany (Anne) and Austria (Laurin).

The families from Reconquista are: Robert-Maurencig; OrtolaniPerone; Pellegrini-Villalba; Tomadín-Masat. From Avellaneda: Regonat-Menichelli; Sosa-Luna.

From Malabrigo: Scalini-Nardin and from Calchaquí: RedigondaRodriguez.

As promised, AFS Local Chapter will meet the new host families one more time next Saturday 20th of August to give the last Orientation before the students arrive. AFS commits to the task of preparing the families before living the experience and to support them during the year.

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

2nd Orientation for

AFS Host Families

Saturday, 23rd 2011

The eight families who are about to live the AFS Experience, participated in the 2nd Orientation for the AFS Host Families. Once more, it took place in Dante Alighieri N° 384 School. We thank all of them who lent us their classrooms for this activity.

This opportunity, AFS showed the families different key concepts such as ‘intercultural communication’ and its main obstacles, and ‘behaviour and conduct’ depending on the culture and context people live in.

Other concepts were  Ethnocentrism, Ethnorelativism,  Multiculturalism,  Interculturalism,  High and Low Context,  Chronemics and  Proxemics.

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Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

Calchaqui opens doors to AFS and one student from AFS Island

Thanks to Centro de Enseñanza de Inglés from Calchaquí, AFS Programas Interculturales arrives to this small town from northern Santa Fe Province.

Teachers Romina del Valle Dotti and Silvia Marta Berli, both teachers from Centro de Enseñanza de Inglés (CEI), received the AFS volunteers from Reconquista Local Chapter last July, 1st.

The meeting was meant to be the first of many in an attempt to bring and start a different educational programme to Calchaqui,

so that local young people and families can experiment the richness offered by Interculturalism.

Some local families joined the meeting, moved by the urge to become a volunteer host family. Mr Angel Miguel Milessi, Secretary for Tourism and Environment of Calchaqui, was also present. The AFS volunteers offered to participate in cultural activities organised by the Secretary and the Town Council, with the aim of giving the local teenagers and people the chance to meet eleven AFS Exchange Students who will be in our Local Chapter, thus spreading the AFS Programmes, Values and Mission.

Motivated by the AFS Mission, both teachers committed themselves to the AFS cause becoming volunteers of AFS Programas Interculturales Argentina & Uruguay. They started working in August 2011 supporting the Redigonda-Rodriguez family from Calchaqui, who will receive the first student from AFS Island in the community.

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Silvia Marta Berli, José Manuel Buyatti, Sergio L. Sanchez and Romina Del Valle Dotti

Back in Reconquista, visiting their families

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures

AFS Programas Interculturales offers intercultural learning experiences for a school semester or year, but the experience does not end there. The bonding and friendship last for longer and keep on growing throughout time and distance.

A proof of this is the return of former AFS exchange students to Reconquista who, taking advantage of their summer holidays, came back to town to visit their „foster Gabriella Schivardi

Valentin Smutny

families‟.

They are: • Gabriella Schivardi (Italy): she lived for a semester

Stefan Maschel

Giulia Bonaglia

between August 2007 and January 2008 with the Moschén-Vogel family.

• Giulia Bonaglia (Italy): she lived for a semester between August 2009 and January 2010 with the Donatelli-Pando family.

• Valentin Smutny (Austria): he lived for a semester between January 2009 and July 2009 with the Graziano family.

• Stefan Maschel (Austria): he lived for a semester between January 2010 and July 2010 with the MinaLanter family.

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The AFS mate from Spain.

David Etienne was a student in Reconquista from AFS Switzerland. He

was in our town from February 2008 till July of the same year, in a semester programme. He had his exchange experience in Raúl Mina and Claudia Lanteri’s house. He was a student in Instituto San José School.

In the front page of this issue, we can see him having mates opposite the

Puerto de Alicante and the Castle of Santa Bárbara on Mount Benacantil.

Here, we see David having mates opposite the Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia (known as The Sagrada Familia Temple).

It is a Catholic Church and Basilica in Barcelona (Spain), designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. The construction began in 1882 and it is still being built (July 2011). It is Gaudí’s masterpiece and it is the best example of the Modern Catalan Architecture.

AFS Reconquista Contacts José Manuel Buyatti  1544-4471 María Elena Landi  421350 Claudia Lanteri  424507 Sergio Sanchez  1545-7527 E-mail: rl.reconquista@afs.org.ar www.afs.org.ar AFS RL RECONQUISTA

Connecting lives, Sharing Cultures