Three specialized groups from Owensboro traveled to the City of Olomouc, Czech Republic, as part of its relationship with its Sister City. The 25-year partnership depends on the exchange of political leaders and high school students, and this year, the opportunity for three delegations to travel together to the city earlier this month.
Kelia West, Owensboro/Olomouc Sister Cities High School Student exchange program director, began working with the high school exchange program in 2009 and traveled to Olomouc as a chaperone with a group of students under Marcia Carpenter’s leadership. The next year West was recruited to be on the Sister Cities board of directors and since, has worked with František Brauner, the biology teacher and exchange coordinator at the Gymnásium, Olomouc-Hejčín, the Olomouc high school that partners with Owensboro.
West recruits students from the four local high schools by word of mouth. The intention is that each host family has a student that will participate in the exchange the following year. When West receives the student information for those coming from Olomouc, she asks the interested host families to choose the student that seems to be the best fit for their family for their two-week exchange in Owensboro.
“Since I’ve been doing it, they have done a tremendous job [choosing the best fit],” West said.
Eight students from Hejčín came to Owensboro in the fall of 2018 for two weeks as part of the program and reconnected with host students who went as part of the exchange program. Those students were Victoria Garrard, Allie Hargitt, Mary Grace Hemingway, Keaton Leigh, Clayton Rhoads and Ann Lawton Watson.
Rhoads’ family did not host a student last year, but he joined the others on the trip to Olomouc and stayed with Simon, one of the students who came to Owensboro last year.
“I made a lasting friendship with Simon, his family and several other friends,” Rhoads said. “We were just texting today. I’m looking forward to going back over just as soon as I can.”
The Hejčín school was built in 1950 and has 1,000 students who attend the public school. It is an English-speaking school, so when local students visited the school for their time in Olomouc, they saw lessons presented in English.
While local students were there, Dutch students were also participating in an exchange program, so the students were able to experience two cultures on this trip.
The first day of class offered Owensboro’s students the opportunity to learn about the Velvet Revolution of 1989 when Czechoslovakia saw the fall of the Russian Regime through student presentations.
“Real happiness [for these students] is to be in the space of people they already knew,” said Elaine Wright, associate professor at Brescia University and Sister City board member who went on the trip.
Ross Leigh, director of Parks and Recreation, and Elizabeth Griffith, Business Retention and Expansion Manager for the Greater Owensboro Economic Development Corporation, went as representatives for Owensboro government. Leigh also serves on the Sister Cities board and hosted an exchange student three years ago and last year has a son who has participated in the program two years ago and another son who went as an exchange student on this trip as well.
Students from both cities, along with Ross, Griffith, Wright and West and Bruner met with Olomouc’s deputy mayor in Olomouc’s city hall, a 200-year old historical building.
Leigh, along with Wright, West and Griffith also met with Miroslav Žbánek, MPA, Olomouc’s mayor to discuss the status and future vision for the partnership. Žbánek, is new, and after the courtesy meeting, the two cities signed an agreement to continue the Sister Cities partnership.
“We represent a second generation of Sister City representatives and we want to continue to be able to move the program forward,” Leigh said.
Leigh said that Olomouc’s partnership with Owensboro is Olomouc’s second most active Sister City partnership and that having Griffith on the trip was about making connections for economic development between the cities, something that Mayor Watson would like to work toward in the future.
The Owensboro representatives took Kentucky products to the meetings, something Olomouc representatives exchange when they come to Owensboro.
Leigh said some of the discussion was about the cities’ similarities — hospitals, health care, fertile ground — and how we can link the cities. Both cities have a willingness to the partnership, which is a long-term investment.
Griffith said over the past 25 years, Owensboro has been fortunate to have a relationship with Olomouc and the exchange programs.
“In the future, I think it would be beneficial to both of our communities to find other ways to partner with one another, especially in regard to economic development,” Griffith said. “Both Owensboro and Olomouc economies are heavily populated by the manufacturing industry and both communities understand the importance of education. It would be wonderful to see how we could partner with one another in those two areas and beyond.”
Wright, as a representative of Brescia University who also has a partnership with an Olomouc college, presented two lectures at CARITAS College of Social Work. The first discussed partnership opportunities between institutions in a lecture about advocacy and international humanitarian social work and was attended by 40 students and staff.
Wright’s second lecture had 95 students and faculty in attendance to learn about human rights in charity work and poverty.
Wright also attended meetings with past and current CARITAS social work students, and the homeless shelter and nonprofit community to address poverty for Roma individuals and families.
Wright also met with Martin Bednář, Ph.D, Director of CARITAS College to sign the new agreement with Brescia University.
The students were able to experience the family life and cultural of the students they hosted last year in Owensboro.
Rhoads said that he attended a traditional Czech wedding with his host family.
“It took us three separate train rides and then a two-and-a-half mile walk into the woods to get to the church,” Rhoads said. “It was an old Catholic church, built sometime around 1000 A.D., sitting right in the middle of this forest. It was amazing.”
Rhoads said the trip was amazing and he enjoyed immersing himself in a different culture.
“I had an incredible time,” Rhoads said.
