 Eager to learn about the Canadian Wilderness
Gordon Bazzana / Capital News
Charlie Hodge, Executive Director of the Canadian EarthCare Society and a Capital News columnist, leads a tour group of Japanese students around the Sibell Maude-Roxby Bird Sanctuary last week.
By Jennifer Smith
Staff Reporter
Jun 22 2005
The Okanagan environment gained a classroom full of helping hands this week all the way from Japan.
Thirty-three 16-year-old students from Tezukayama Gakuin-a private school for girls in Japan-plan to spend the next three months fitting periodic volunteer efforts into their English as a second language studies, learning about Canadian wilderness and giving back to the community that is helping them learn a new language.
The group partnered with Canadian EarthCare Society, stuffing envelopes and getting back to nature on a bird sanctuary tour on their first day of work.
Society members introduced their Wildlife Recovery Centre project to the group so the youths could understand their role in the process. The girls were given their own seedling kits to start a forest in honour of their school.
With a land mass that could fit into the province of British Columbia three times, and a population of 125 million, these students have little experience with protecting vast tracts of empty land and wildlife.
But here in the Okanagan wildlife protection is a critical issue. The EarthCare Society hopes to offer solutions with the recovery centre they are developing on Eight Mile Ranch.
They're learning about another side of Canadian culture and what we can do with a nonprofit society," explained Karen Needham, OUC International student study tour coordinator.
For students like Anna Kishida, a former Tezukayama student who returned to OUC after completing high school in Japan, the volunteer portion of her trip was not a memorable one.
While she really enjoyed her trip and came to love the Okanagan, she could not recall ever doing volunteer work.
Needham and fellow coordinator Quentin Hughson hope by partnering with one society, the girls will remember their experience, the school will develop a bond with their project of choice and the society will benefit from the on going support.
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