Club President Loida Lumanlan with Chelsea Leach
This past week we were given an update on what our former Rotary Exchange Student, Stephanie Leach has been doing for the past few years. Stephanie spent her exchange year of 2019 to 2020 in southern France living and attending high school there. She told us that the biggest challenge she had while there was getting around on her own under challenging conditions as she was living in the rural area of a foreign language country and had to rely on public transport a lot. The skills she learned then have proven very useful to her now. She learned how to walk up to strangers from another country, talk to them and build friendships. She also learned not to be afraid to ask for help when she needed it. Stephanie said that her exchange experience also gave her another advantage as she is now fully fluent in French. She said that her experience gave her a good base of self confidence and resilience that has served her well.
Since finishing high school in Edmonton, she has been attending the Royal Military Academy in Kingston, Ontario and is in training to become an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces. Stephanie told us that she will graduate next spring with two major subjects, Space Sciences and Physics. She has also been busy maintaining her Rotary connections while attending the academy and has learned to balance all of her responsibilities as an officer in training with her commitments to the several Rotary Clubs to which she belongs.
She said that the military training is very intense both physically and mentally and it is the only program that she knows of where you must pass the rigorous physical component to be able to graduate. The physical component involves making it through a multi-part obstacle course that is long and gruelling and requires teamwork, physical strength and resilience. While in training she also had the opportunity to learn fencing. Stephanie told us that she is proud of her accomplishments and is looking forward to the Royal Military Games next year where she will represent her college and compete for Canada in Fencing. The other three components of the program are the university level course work, leadership skills and French language proficiency.
Stephanie thanked us and said that her experiences as a Rotary Exchange student made her much more prepared to take on the challenges she has faced and will face in the future. We wish her every success in her future endeavors.