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Rotary Exchange student selected, preparing for year abroad

A Flin Flon student will attend school in Italy this fall as part of a Rotary Club-sponsored student exchange. Nevada Shirran will get the opportunity to experience something different from Manitoba life.
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Nevada Shirran (far right) will be travelling to Italy for school through the Rotary Exchange program. - SUBMITTED PHOTO

A Flin Flon student will attend school in Italy this fall as part of a Rotary Club-sponsored student exchange.

Nevada Shirran will get the opportunity to experience something different from Manitoba life. She will split time between host families on the island of Sardinia.

“I just always really enjoyed traveling,” Shirran said. “I think that it’d be a very great opportunity to be able to experience something new. I’ve never really been able to travel on my own, so I’m just very, very excited about the fact that I’d be able to go and create my own experiences and do it all on my own.”

Shirran, who will be taking all her classes in Italian, has already started to learn the language.

“I’ve done a couple of my lessons,” she said. “Since I’m a French student, it’s not as hard as I thought it was going to be. It’s still difficult because they’re not similar.”

Planning for the trip picked up late last month when Shirran was put in contact with her first host family.

“I’ve been messaging with my first host dad, so we’ll be able to kind of know the area that I’m going to be in and what to expect when I first arrive.” she said.

“I’ve been trying to learn Italian so that I won’t have a complete language barrier. And yeah, I don’t know. I don’t really know what to expect, so I don’t really know how to get ready for it yet.”

Shirran was motivated to apply for the Rotary Club Exchange program because she has never travelled to Europe before.

“I’m mostly just looking forward to probably seeing all the new things that are there for me to see and experiencing a new culture because everywhere that I’ve traveled has been similar to Canada,” she said.

“I’ve never really experienced something completely new. So I think it’ll be nice to just be immersed into something brand new for me.”

The Flin Flon Rotary Club will be hosting a male student from Belgium this year. They are looking for families willing to host him for a few months.

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