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Goodwill ambassadors

The GSE members who visited Oregon

Team spirit

People do get the opportunity to visit other countries. Some go as tourists, many as professionals on business trips or jobs and some in pursuit of higher studies. But none of the visits could be as fulfilling and exciting as the Rotary Group Study E xchange visit. The fortunate few who had made it, say that ‘One has to experience it to understand it”.

This year a group of four bubbly youth led by a Rotarian from the Rotary District 3020 made it to Rotary District 5110 in Oregon in the US.

The team comprised of Chaitanya, a Chartered Accountant and an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer who works of the HSBC, Pooja Hirawat, a fashion designer and businesswoman, Kalyan, an HR trainer and furniture retailer, and Nagalakshmi, a professional Kuchipudi dancer and trainer. The team was lead by Krishnamohan, an event manager and HR trainer.

While Chaitanya and Pooja were from Visakhapatnam and were sponsored by Rotary Club of Visakhapatnam and Cosmo respectively, Nagalakshmi was sponsored by Rotary Club of Kakinada, Kalyan by Rotary Club of Kakinada- Central and Krishnamohan by Rotary Club of Vijayawada.

The GSE programme was initiated by the Rotary Foundation in 1965 and first team from this district to touch foreign shores was in 1972. Group Study Exchange (GSE) program is a unique cultural and vocational exchange opportunity for business people and professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 who are in the early stages of their careers.

The programme is unique in the sense that the teams are hosted by the family members in the respective host districts and that gives the exclusive opportunity to have a close encounter with their lifestyle, culture and vocation.

The tour is usually planned for a duration of four to six weeks and the members are handpicked after two or three rounds of gruelling sessions of interview, public speaking and group discussion.

“The selection of team members and the team leader is very important. The programme is weaved into the ideals of Rotary, which is to further international understanding and peace. And the team members are ambassadors of the ideals.

They should be successful professionals with thorough knowledge of international understanding and culture,” says Vidyasagar, former team leader to Belgium.

Sharing her experiences Pooja Hirawat says, “It was a lifetime experience. In the beginning of the tour we were a little hesitant, but the host families opened up their homes to make us feel at home.

They did a lot of homework to give us a warm stay. They even picked up a few Indian vegetarian cuisines to make us comfortable. They even took us to the grocery stores to enable us to pick up items for our cuisine and we were given the opportunity to serve our dishes. And they relished the Indian curry.”

Though the team had gone during a period when recession was at its peak and the people in the US were talking of job cuts and cutting outsourcing, the host families did not give a feel of the happenings. Team leader Krishnamohan says, “They had high regard for our growing economy and held themselves responsible for the global recession.

On a number of occasions they pointed out that our economic policies were strong and appreciated our age-old culture.

They valued the fact that India is one country that had never invaded any other country but has always been aggressed upon. During the course of our meetings and interactions, we cleared the cloud hanging over our caste system, as many were of the feeling that unsociability still persists.”

Since each of the team members come from different vocations, each had the time to understand the same in the host country and as well as exchange notes of their own.

“GSE experience enriches one’s life. Many who had been part of the team have gained enough to make it big in life. One such example is Ghazal Srinivas, who is a GSE alumni,” says the former team leader to Sweden Avasarala Srinivas.

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