Frank Deaver Rotary Editorials

     Behold the giant oak tree; its origin was from a tiny acorn.  Behold Rotary’s Group Study Exchange; its origin was a 1955 idea of a New Zealand district, envisioning the benefits of international understanding.

     The giant oak of GSE has now included more than 46,000 individuals, nearly 11,000 GSE teams, from more than 100 countries, with Rotary support in excess of $82 million.  Young professionals, ages 25 to 40, explore counterpart vocations in another society, and both guest and host profit from the exchange of observations and ideas.

     Explaining Group Study Exchange is no easy task.  It is not adequately defined in words; it must be experienced to be fully understood.  But a beginning definition might call it an “immersion experience in another society.”

     International travelers can be subdivided into four categories, each characterized by distinctly different motives and activities. At the risk of oversimplification, consider these distinctions:

          Tourists go abroad to make pictures.
          Business people go abroad to make money.
          Politicians go abroad to make news.
          GSE teams go abroad to make friends.

     GSE doesn’t fit any of the other categories. GSE is people-to-people.  GSE allows participants not just to get into a country or society, not just into communities and homes, but into the heads and hearts of counterparts.  GSE is not so much a travel experience as a living experience.

     While tourists see monuments, GSE members learn why the locals revere those monuments. Although tourists contribute to the host economy, they have only limited positive influence on international understanding.

     While business people write contracts, GSE members observe the skills and pride that go into local production. The business community willingly exploits cheap labor as an accepted part of hard business realities, and personal considerations are subverted to the profit motive.

     While politicians conclude inter-governmental agreements, GSE members come to understand nationalism and its very personal sentiments.  Diplomats engage each other in media events.  They shake hands because it’s expected of them.  They smile because the news cameras are recording their every expression.

     These international travelers serve their own purposes, but for establishing personal friendships, we are left with travelers in programs such as Group Study Exchange.  They are the international travelers who truly contribute to cross-cultural understanding and goodwill.

     GSE team members may live in half a dozen homes in another country, establishing friendships that last a lifetime.  Both guests and hosts may recognize that their way is not the only way, perhaps not even the best way. Another society’s way may not inherently be worse—or better—but only different. Without the “immersion experience” afforded by GSE, this basic truth may never be recognized.

     So let us return to our attempt at defining Rotary’s Group Study Exchange.  Let us go beyond calling it an “immersion experience in another society.”  Let us characterize it bluntly, even dramatically, perhaps even prophetically.  Let us say boldly and with Rotary pride that Group Study Exchange has proven itself one of the strongest forces in the world for peace.

     If true peace, lasting peace, is ever to come to this world, it will not be because political leaders meet and shake hands and smile for the cameras.  It will not be because business leaders negotiate reciprocally beneficial trade relations. Instead, it will be because individual people, ordinary people, get to know each other on a personal basis.  It will be because as individuals we come to understand and respect each other, and to recognize that our differences should be complementary, not competitive. It will be because individuals in large numbers become personal and lasting friends.

     That is the genius of Rotary’s Group Study Exchange.