by Bibiani Benedetta and Elisabetta Binetti (3A sci)
“I have long believed, as have many before me, that peaceful relations between nations requires understanding and mutual respect between individuals”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (founder of People to People in 1956)
The People to People Student Ambassador Program creates domestic and international travel opportunities to middle and high school students.
Every year more than 20,000 ambassadors travel all over the world and more than 20.000 families host them: this is the reason why it’s called people to people.
By this project President Eisenhower wanted to give the opportunity to all the American citizens to meet new cultures and new friends from different countries.
We learned about it on Facebook, and we immediately asked our English teacher for more information. We were very excited about People to People so we decided to join.
We hosted three girls: Ashley, Alyah, and Rachel. They came from New Jersey, they attended the same high school so they had already met each other. They spent three days with us.
The first day we went to Venice and we walked around the city, it was a sunny day so we had an ice-cream. They bought a lot of souvenirs for their friends and families.
The girls were more attracted by the view than the monuments like San Marco’s cathedral maybe because most students don’t study History of Art at school in the U.S.
In the afternoon we went out all together and we showed them round Mestre: they noticed that Mestre and its buildings are smaller than theirs and the girls invited us to go and see “the City” (New York).
We spent the other days in different places, like Padua, Treviso, Murano and Burano and we showed them the most important things. The evening before their leaving we went out for a pizza with our families. They were really happy and they said :”The best pizza of my life!”. We have become really close friends and we’re still in contact, we are looking forward to meeting each other again soon!
We suggest to try this experience because it’s a fantastic way to meet other students from all over the world. It gives the opportunity to learn what foreigners think about us and to understand that even if traditions and cultures might change, we are not so different.