Ambassadorial Scholarships
The
Rotary Foundation's oldest and best-known program is Ambassadorial
Scholarships, established in 1947. Since that time, more than 30,000 men and
women from 100 nations have studied abroad under its auspices. Today, the
Ambassadorial Scholarships Program of The Rotary Foundation is the world's
largest privately-funded international scholarships program. . Through
grants totaling over US$24 million, recipients from some 65 countries will
study in more than 50 different nations.
The purpose of the Ambassadorial
Scholarships Program is to further international understanding and friendly
relations among people of different countries.
Beginning in 1987, the Rotary Club of
Mission Viejo has had six Ambassadorial Scholars under our club's
Ambassadorial Scholarship Director, Norm Miller and assisted by Bob Bridges
and Past President Victoria Avery.Prior to Norm Miller, our director was
Fred Butcher. Currently (2003) our Director is Gary Poertner.
The Scholarships sponsored by our
club
| Ambassador Scholar |
Year |
University Location |
| Gwen Glassman |
1987-1988 |
Perth, Australia |
| Grace Won |
1990-1991 |
London, England |
| Melissa Raimondi |
1992-1993 |
Exeter, England |
| Eva Mac Gillivray |
1996-1997 |
France |
| Karen Walsh |
1997-1998 |
Cambridge, England |
|
Camrin Christensen |
1999-2000 |
Siberia, Russia |
Rotary Report from Camrin Christensen
Letter from our Ambassadorial Scholar,
Karen Walsh
June 21, 1998
Hello Everyone,
I hope this finds you all doing
well. I am now officially a
Cambridge degree holder! I finished my exams and received my results just
a few
days ago. It is hard to believe that the whole academic year has already
flown by.
Since I finished my exams, 1 have been doing all the errands that built up
over the
last few months and enjoying Cambridge in relatively good weather. May
Week was last week (the second week of June!). The week kicked off with
garden parties at Queens' next to the river and was followed by barbecues,
dances and more garden parties held by different groups at the college. I
went to Jesus College's May Ball.
The balls are held from 9 in the evening until 6 in the morning. They are
typically
very formal with all the women In long dresses and men in tuxes, some with
tails.
Despite the finery, the atmosphere is really more like a carnival. There
are tents set up in different places on the grounds with food, dancing,
live bands and drinks.There were even bumper cars. It was very odd to see
people in poofy satin dresses trying to run each other down. Reminiscent
of the 10 freeway on Oscar night, I guess. I did make it until the
Survivor's Photo at 6. A lot of the women (myself included) brought comfy
shoes to change in to so as to be able to boogie the night away. I think
the shoes, the donuts served at 5 and the fact that the sun began rising
at 3:30 helped me through. It was a great experience, but I think once was
enough.
My host counselor, Nigel invited me to lunch at his house last weekend. He
lives in a thatched cottage built in 1671! It was a beautiful house with a
giant brick hearth and roses in the garden. He also has a vegetable garden
with raspberries, spinach, artichokes and I tried my first gooseberry
fresh from the bush. It was a really nice day. I will have lunch with the
Cambridge club after I return from traveling and before I head home I will
be traveling this summer with someone from home until late August/ early
September visiting friends & friends of friends in Greece, Egypt and
Russia (Moscow & St. Petersburg). We will go through Turkey as well. The
logistics of getting from place to place should be a bit tricky because it
will all be done by ferry or train, but knowing people should help and
getting there will be at least half the fun (I hope!). It should be an
amazing trip. Roughly two weeks in each place - an itinerary of any order
would probably fall apart anyway. Along with all the new things I will be
seeing, I hope to have some time to let all the things I have seen
andlearned this year settle in. It has gone by so quickly. I'll send some
postcards! Enjoy the photos.
Karen
 PPVictoria
Avery shown with Karen Walsh and Ambassadorial Director Norm Miller
wishing Karen a Bon Voyage in 1997
ROTARACT, UNIVERSITY OF IRKUTSK
I am
participating in the Irkutsk-Baikal Rotaract Club.
Meetings are held on Wednesdays at 6:30. The usual meeting
format is: call to order, introduction of guests (the club is about
a year and a half old and actively recruiting members), recent
events, new business, upcoming events. Rotaract has become
closely involved with two local Children's homes, where the
members engage in a variety of tasks. Some members teach
English (most of the members were students at the Siberian-
American Business school and through Vladimir Donskoi and
Rotary, spent a month living and working in the US) while
others play with the children. Rotaract has also taken up the
project of reconstructing one of the two Children's Homes.
REPORT FROM OUR AMBASSADORIAL
SCHOLAR Camrin Michelle Christensen who is
attending Irkutsk University in Siberia, Russia
Dear Rotary,
I wanted to give you another quick update on my life here in
Russia. Everything is going magnificently! I find that I am busier
than ever with Rotary, Rotaract and school these days. In addition,
I have been meeting other foreigners everywhere, most recently
people that were over to observe the elections. I spoke with many
people about the Presidential elections, and interestingly enough,
most people didn't want to vote for Putin, but felt that he was the
best candidate. The general concern here was that Putin was so
closely associated with Yelstin and that no one really knew who he
was.
He was essentially considered a shoe-in, though, and I heard on
Russian tv that although all of the votes hadn't been counted, the
West was already announcing that Putin had one. (I actually met
quite a few people that were voting for Zyuganov, the Communist
candidate). As you can probably imagine, nothing seems to be
different here. Irkutsk is an incredibly stable region anyway, very
far away from Moscow.
On the Rotaract front, I spent three hours yesterday at the
Orphanage with my friend Andrei. He has been heading up all of
the projects at the 0rphanage, ranging from weekly visits with
cooperation from the Siberian American Managing School, through
interior decorating (he had art students come over and paint fairy
tale characters on the walls in the play area), to the photo album
project. I already mentioned how I have been appointed head
photographer, and as such I took about 100 pictures of the children
after school, before the Rotaract meeting yesterday. On Friday,
Andrei and I are joining the children at the circus and hope to take
more pictures of them in a different atmosphere. These pictures
also might play arole in helping the children to be adopted.
My mother and sister will be arriving this Tuesday. I am still
attempting to plan a trip to Baikal and show them as much as I can
of Irkutsk (including taking them to a Rotaract meeting, Rotary
meets on Mondays so I don't think we will make it to that, but we
can stop by and visit the President and Vladimir Donskoi).
Yesterday I e-mailed Rotarians in both Moscow and St. Petersburg
in order to arrange a visit while we are there. After about 5
days in Irkutsk, my mother, sister and I will be setting off on our
3.5 day train ride to Moscow. My host mother is attempting to
organize our accommodation so that we can stay in a Grad Student
Dormitory, and I have a friend in St. Petersburg who has already
found us accomodation on Nevsky Prospekt, no less. It is the main
street in St. Petersburg.
The weather is being evil. It snowed a few days ago, and the wind,
the WIND here is incredible! Thank goodness for sun glasses. It is
like freezing cold Santana winds blowing dust in your eyes. It had
gotten really quite warm, but it hailed yesterday and I was told, as I
complained, that it could stay like that until June. Apparently it has
been known to snow even in June!
Camrin
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