Niamh Lavis has recently returned from a year long Rotary Youth Exchange in Italy but has already booked a visit back to her host family in September.
Little did Niamh Lavis know how much a three month Paying it Forward trip to Fiji in March 2022 would change her own life.
Student exchange was never something that Ms Lavis had thought much about until a cousin who had been on exchange herself encouraged Niamh to look into it she became curious.
“I decided to do a three month Paying it Forward trip to Fiji with ten other students in a small group setting in 2022,” Ms Lavis said.
“It was amazing. We were cutting down trees to build a school, cleaning up the beaches, fundraising and we took suitcases of donated goods over with us.
“It was a great experience.”
As a result of this trip, Ms Lavis was encouraged to interview for Rotary’s Youth Exchange program.
“It all happened really quickly from there,” she said.
“I was sponsored to go to Italy for a year and lived with two different host families during that time.
“It was a year I will never forget.”
Though she admits that communicating was very difficult to begin with, especially with her first host family speaking no English, her twelve months living in the country has resulted in fluency in her host country’s language.
“School is very different in Italy,” Ms Lavis said.
“There are many different schools and they each focus on a particular thing.
“I was sent to a scientific school, I think because they spoke more English so it made it easier for me to study, but the level of work and expectations were very hard.”
Despite the initial challenges and higher expectations on students, Niamh loved her experience so much that she has already booked a return trip in September.
“My mum and Dad are now learning Italian too so that we can all go back in September to visit with my host families and see friends,” Ms Lavis said.
“I made some incredible lifelong friends, and I am so excited to see them again.
“Even though I missed my family when I was away and I’m happy to be home, knowing that I was going back to Italy so soon made it a bit easier to leave the family I have there now too.”
Though the first few months away from home as a young lady were challenging, Niamh says that she was so busy integrating into her new family and school, and the ability to video call regularly made the transition easier.
“It is not recommended for family to visit while you’re on exchange because it can be really hard when they leave again but I was surrounded by my Italian family all the time and able to video call home so it wasn’t too bad.” Ms Lavis said.
The experience has instilled a deep love of travel in Niamh who, once she completes her Australian education is planning to expand on the trips she was able to do through Europe and all around Italy whilst she was on exchange.
“I’ve definitely got the travel bug now,” she said.
“I’ll be going back to Italy often and I’ll probably take a gap year to see more of the world.
“I might even continue my tertiary studies in Italy but it is definitely the best thing I’ve ever done and I would say to anybody who might be thinking about, do it!”