At their meeting of 26th March the Rotary Club of Anstruther & District was delighted to welcome Amy Young, who came to talk about her experiences as a ‘EuroScola’.

Amy, who is Head Girl at Waid Academy, was sponsored by Anstruther club to visit Strasbourg from the 3rd to the 8th February and which, as part of the EuroScola programme, included time in the European Parliament. The selection process is demanding and Amy was competing against final-year pupils from Secondary schools across Scotland, with a final group of 26 being selected. Some of their experiences can be seen at www.euroscolaonline.com

Amy, who is also a talented musician, is studying Advanced Highers, including French and hopes to study International Relations at St Andrews University. She explained how valuable she found the EuroScola programme, especially as all formal activities are conducted in French – including presentations and questions in L’hemicycle - complete with headphones, translators and an audience of 300.

We heard also of friendships made with other young people from across Europe, including Scandinavia and several Eastern European nations; of the on-going friendships that developed as a multi-national group of strangers got to know one another and worked together.

It was intriguing to hear about the ‘Eurogame’ – a quiz of 15 questions, with each question in a different European language. There was also ‘Le Sondage’ which was a project to go out onto the streets of Strasbourg to interview passers-by about their understanding of Scotland. Amy made humorous comment about a few of the stereotypical answers!

But we heard too of her visit to Germany – for 10 minutes by walking across a bridge, of temperatures of -17 degrees and of impromptu ceileidhs, of the many social events and of the opportunities to see and understand a different culture.

As Amy said ‘Je vous remercie’ 

Following questions a warm vote of thanks was proposed by Ian Kennedy.