Beaufort Rotarian Nick Hunt’s Group Study Exchange trip to Peru was the topic of his presentation to Bluffton Rotary Club.
Rotary District 7770 has a long-term partnership with District 4460 in northern Peru, and the four-week GSE service mission last May, funded by the Rotary Foundation, was a joint service mission of the two districts. Accompanying team leader Hunt were engineers Tricia Kilgore and Seth Womble, University of South Carolina College of Education student Whitney Waites, Charleston City Planner Stephen Risse and Erin McClam, a farmer from South Carolina’s Midlands.
“The Rotary Foundation is working on building long-term relationships,” Hunt said, “and our partnership with Peru is a terrific example of that.”
The GSE team’s first visit was to Iquitos, the largest port on the Amazon River, which could be accessed only by boat or plane. More than 200,000 people had been displaced by widespread flooding, and the GSE team worked with local Rotarians to deliver food, clothing and supplies to victims of the high water.
After leaving the low-lying, jungle-like environment of Iquitos, the GSE team visited several towns in arid, desert-like conditions: Piura, Sullana and Chiclayo. Sullana had a very active Rotary Club, Hunt said.
Key issues at all stops were education concerns and pollution issues revolving around clean water and sanitation and septic systems.
Near the end of the trip, the South Carolina team attended the local district conference and reunited with Peruvian Rotarians they had met earlier in their trip. A GSE team from northern Peru is scheduled to visit South Carolina in March to present at the District 7770 Conference.
Hunt, a member of the Rotary Club of Beaufort since 1977, served as club president in 1983-84. Hunt speaks Spanish fluently and has traveled extensively in Europe and South America. He and his wife Rosemary have hosted more than a dozen Rotary youth exchange students from seven different countries and are currently hosting Ignacio Lacasa from Madrid, Spain. Hunt was named District Rotarian of the Year in 1997 for his work with the youth exchange program.
Rotary’s GSE program provides travel grants for teams to exchange visits in paired areas of different countries. For four to six weeks, team members experience the host country's culture and institutions, observe how their vocations are practiced abroad, develop personal and professional relationships, and exchange ideas.
In a typical four-week tour, applicants participate in vocational visits, club presentations, social events, two to three days at the local district conference, cultural tours and free time with host families.