THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190450
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 74 lines
Hiking vs. swimming, country vs. city, ``guten Morgen'' vs. ``good morning.''
Those are some of the differences Terri Hankins of Norfolk and Volke Hagen of Wilhelmshaven, Germany, will experience this summer as they trade places between their respective countries' YMCAs.
Hankins, the physical fitness director at the YMCA in downtown Norfolk, is leaving today for Germany, where she'll help run a summer camp program for children.
Meanwhile, Hagen, a YMCA board member in Wilhelmshaven, arrived in the United States on July 7 to help run summer camps at Mount Trashmore's YMCA in Virginia Beach.
``The kids are the same,'' Hagen said earlier this week. ``They are as nice, and as bad sometimes, as children in Germany.''
The exchange is the first swap in an international partnership that the YMCA of South Hampton Roads has formed with a Y in Wilhelmshaven, a port city on the North Sea.
By next year, the two Ys hope to add a summer camp exchange for children.
Almost 400 YMCAs across the country have set up such partnerships with sister YMCAs in places like Japan, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Russia, Brazil, Egypt, the Philippines, India, Scotland and Greece.
The idea is to exchange fitness and activity ideas between countries, add a multicultural element to Y programs and provide an opportunity for YMCA members and staff to learn more about the world.
In some partnerships, sister Ys have helped raise funds and collect clothes and equipment for Ys struggling to get off the ground in impoverished areas.
The Wilhelmshaven Y, for instance, has formed another partnership with a YMCA in Minsk, Belarus, in which the German Y hauls equipment and other supplies to the Belorussian community once a year.
Doug Williams, a board member for the YMCA of South Hampton Roads who helped set up the partnership with the German Y, said he hopes the local Ys can one day form that kind of partnership as well.
But in the meantime, Hankins and Hagen will be checking out the logistics for future exchanges of children between South Hampton Roads and Wilhelmshaven.
Hankins will spend a week with 8- to 13-year-olds in cabins in the countryside of Wildflecken, which is where the Wilhelmshaven Y takes children for summer camps. Wildflecken is about a two-hour drive from Frankfurt.
Hankins' experience will include more hiking and art and music activities than American Y programs. Hagen's experience will be more fitness-oriented, in a bustling urban YMCA with more equipment than the Wilhelmshaven Y.
While Hankins will stay in cabins with other campers, Hagen is living with a host family during his eight-week visit here, since South Hampton Roads doesn't have residential camps like Wildflecken.
The South Hampton Roads Y chose the German Y for a partnership after a family from Wilhelmshaven, which is a sister city to Norfolk, asked during a visit whether there was a YMCA here.
A contingent of local YMCA board members visited Wilhelmshaven last fall to check things out, and a group of German Y officials came to Hampton Roads this spring.
Williams hopes children can be part of the exchange program as soon as next year.
Initially, children's trips will be paid for by parents, but Williams said the board eventually hopes to provide scholarships for youngsters who want to visit but can't afford the cost.
Hagen, meanwhile, is exploring the possibility of sending German children here.
``I will talk to people here and see the possibilities,'' he said. ``Then I will take my knowledge back to see if it's possible for children to come in future years.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo by CHARLIE MEADS, The Virginian-Pilot
Jennifer Ekrote, left, and Steven Rehbein, right, play cards at the
Virginia Beach YMCA with Volke Hagen, a Y board member visiting from
Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Hagen is the first German visitor in a new
exchange program with the YMCA of South Hampton Roads. by CNB