ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Three students from St. Petersburg will head to Japan in about a month and a half. It’s part of the city’s summer exchange program with its sister city, Takamatsu.
Big picture view:
The student ambassador program started close to 40 years ago in 1988. Three pairs of students will swap cities and live in each other’s homes this summer for almost two weeks. They’ll attend high school for two days, visit important cultural sites, give presentations about their respective cities to city leaders in the country they’re visiting and learn about the differences and similarities between the two cultures.
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“The Sister City relationship is intended to help expand cultural awareness and appreciation in a world where we are increasingly fragmenting ourselves,” said Steven Barefield, the president of St. Petersburg International Folk Fair Society, which manages St. Pete’s Sister City program.
What they’re saying:
“So, the opportunity to experience a different way of life, a difference of thinking, a different way of speaking, a different way of eating, a different way of traveling, really expands horizons and prepares the students who are coming into the future world to be more apt to be able to move from environment to environment and culture to culture easily and successfully and thrive,” he said.
According to Barefield, more than a dozen students applied this year. Students have to live in St. Pete to be eligible. Jayda Parkes-Quarrie, who attends St. Petersburg Collegiate High School, is one of the students who were chosen.
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“I was like, ‘wow this is really cool and I feel like not many people get this opportunity,’ so there are lots of people, obviously, in St. Pete and for it to be limited to juniors only, okay, I’m a junior,” she said. “This is like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I was like, ‘yeah I definitely need to apply to this,’ and I was very excited,” Parkes-Quarrie said. “I was like, ‘this is a very cool thing that this city is doing to get kids exposed to different cultures and seeing a life outside of their own.’”
Parkes-Quarrie said she plans to show the Japanese students the Pier and several restaurants when they arrive in St. Pete.
Dig deeper:
St. Pete and Takamatsu were some of the first pairs of cities in Florida and Japan to form a Sister City relationship in 1961. Takamatsu reached out to St. Pete, saying they’d be a good match because of the cities’ similar climates, size, the fact that they’re both coastal cities and face a lot of similar challenges and other factors.
“In addition, the name Takamatsu means tall pine, and we are in Pinellas County, also referencing pine. So, for all of those reasons, it was suggested that we partner,” Barefield said.
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Takamatsu also has a large bridge that resembles the Skyway Bridge, he said.
For decades, the cities have both had leaders and citizen delegations traveling back and forth. Every year, an Eckerd College graduate goes to Japan to teach English for a year as well. St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch has a visit to Takamatsu planned for next year.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX 13’s Kailey Tracy.
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