Schools

Highland Park Students Head to Northern Ireland

Six students and three chaperones embarked on a 10-day journey through Northern Ireland as part of the Highland Park High School TABU (Toward A Better Understanding) program last month.

The information below comes from the Rotary Club of Highland Park and Highwood.

On March 19, six students and three chaperones embarked on a 10-day journey through Northern Ireland as part of the Highland Park High School TABU (Toward A Better Understanding) program. 

The students kept a blog journaling each day and their activities from wheels up to touch down and back. 

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The students, Lupita Estela, Anna Fox, Drew Gerber, John Starkey, Isa Spoerry, Suzanne Warshell and chaperones, Cheryl Levi, Genevieve Misfeldt, and Paul Munk stayed with host families learning about conflict resolution, the culture, and the impact of the conflict on individual lives and making life long bonds and friendships. Cheryl Levi, a retired NSSD112 teacher and Rotarian said the experience was “like nothing before”. 

TABU, a Rotary sponsored program at the Highland Park High School, Towards A Better Understanding, is the student exchange program between The Rotary Club of Highland Park/Highwood and the Rotary Club of Belfast Northern Ireland.  The goal of the 10 day trip is to address conflict resolution and global understanding.

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Five of the TABU students joined the Rotary Club at their weekly luncheon and presented their experiences and lessons learned while traveling in Northern Ireland.  The group visited several Conflict Resolution Agencies, the parliaments of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, East Belfast Police Department, and the Northern Ireland Courts, specifically the Department in charge of Restorative Justice. Isa Spoerry, a HPHS sophomore, summed up the trip as being life changing, and that conflict can be reduced to finding empathy and understanding. This was the feeling echoed by each of the other five students and their Rotarian chaperones Cheryl Levi and Paul Munk.

The Rotary Club of Highland Park/Highwood sponsors programs such as TABU.  President Burt Schmarak commented, “I am proud to be a Rotarian everyday, but today is even more special.  The six young adults that represented our club in Northern Ireland are beautiful, bright, articulate and grateful.  They all came away from this experience with a new prospective on our world, and for that I am changed as well." 

Chartered in 1927, the club has supported the communities of Highland Park and Highwood, its businesses, and its residents through charitable donations and service projects.  Since 2009 alone, the club has provided nearly $250,000 to community programs.  

The club supports the HPHS Scholarship fund, The Interact Club, The HPHS Literacy program, RYLA the Lake McHenry Veterans and Family Services and The Highland Park Nursery School and Day Care Center. In prior years the club has been instrumental in the renovation of the children's wing of the Highland Park Library and provided them with a mobile book van. In conjunction with the Kellogg Foundation provided the park district with their safety town for children, and in a project with the park district renovated brown park to make it handicapped accessible.

On April 21, 2013 the club comes together in their largest fundraising effort of the year.  The event will be held at the Highland Park Country Club from 5:30 to 8:30. 

Tickets are still available at www.highlandparkrotary.org Proceeds from the event will ensure that programs such as TABU continue well into the future. 

Tickets for the HPHS Scholarship fund are still available at http://bit.ly/Yo3iid Tickets are $100 and the grand prizewinner will be taking home $10,000.


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