At its meeting of 13th March the Rotary Club of Anstruther was delighted to welcome Ella Henderson, who came to talk about her experiences as a ‘EuroScola’. Her talk – including some impressively fluent French - was delivered with nice touches of humour and with great poise and confidence. Ella’s talk was supported by a well put-together PowerPoint presentation.

Ella, who is a final-ear student at Waid Academy, was sponsored by Anstruther club to visit Strasbourg as part of Rotary’s EuroScola programme and included time at the European Parliament. The selection process is demanding: competition is against final-year students from secondary schools across Scotland and with a final group being selected to join young people from Europe’s member states.

Ella is currently considering offers from several Scottish universities, where she plans to study Politics and Economics. With this in mind she explained how valuable she found the EuroScola experience. She was selected as ‘Rapporteur’ for her group, which gave her responsibility for making a ten-minute speech – in French of course - in L’Hemicycle. There was also ‘Le Sondage’ which involves going out onto the streets of Strasbourg to interview passers-by about their understanding of Scotland.

We heard of the immediate benefit and confidence the EuroScola experience had given her for French oral examinations and it was interesting to hear Ella comment especially on the value of a second language.

It was both interesting and impressive to learn that group work involved making a short documentary about Strasbourg and to hear of meetings with Catherine Stihler, Labour MEP for Scotland and with Evelyne Gebhardt – German politician and MEP. The opportunity was taken to ask questions about the future of Europe.

Friendships were made with other young people from across Europe that grew as a group of strangers got to know one another through their work together. There was even time for a walk across the Pont de l’Europe, to Germany for lunch!

Following questions a warm vote of thanks was proposed by Ian Kennedy, who complimented Ella on her very accomplished and informative talk.