This coming year, students attending Desert Vista High School and Mountain Pointe High School have the opportunity to host a German exchange student as well as travel to Germany themselves with the Tempe Sister City Program.

Tempe has 10 sister cities in total: Skopje, Macedonia; Regensburg, Germany; Lower Hutt, New Zealand; Zhenjiang, China; Timbuktu, Mali; Beaulieu Sur Mer, France; Carlow, Ireland; Cuenca, Ecuador; Cusco, Peru; and Trollhattan, Sweden. This school to school exchange was founded in 1996, and since then has had nine overall exchanges with 366 students.

The program strives to achieve true cultural immersion, with each exchange student partaking in local festivals, family traditions, visiting local stores and museums and also learning (as well as speaking) the basics of the native language(s) of that location. By doing this, the Tempe Sister City Program hopes to live up to their motto of, “Bringing the World Together One Friendship at a Time.”

For Desert Vista students, the specific sister city is Regensburg, Germany. The Tempe Sister City Program is unique in the way that students participating will have the opportunity to host their sister/brother and show them around Arizona for two weeks during March, before they go to Germany for two weeks in June. Students whose families are open to having an exchange student, as well as sending their child abroad, are eligible to participate in the program. Travel dates are June 10 through June 25, 2016. Hosting dates are March 10 through March 25.

20 are students needed for a complete program. If more than 20 students sign up, accommodations will be possible, but extras will not host an exchange student.

The cost for 10 to 14 participants is $2619, the cost for 15 to 19 participants is $2469, and the cost for 20-24 participants is $2349.

For more information, check the link below for dates, applications, and teacher recommendation forms. Also, see Stephanie Smith, math teacher at DVHS for further elaboration. Smith’s email is [email protected]

For more resources visit the following website below:

http://www.tempesistercities.org/exchange-programs/school-to-school-exchange/

http://tempe-sister-cities-b.desertvista.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/integrated_home.phtml?gid=2541782&sessionid=32560aaffff0369566901bc524ee0983