Teen selected to help foster cultural relations - May 2015

ADVENTURE AHEAD: Wanganui High School student Mika Gordon leaves Wanganui for Thailand next week, where she will attend school to learn and teach.

Mika Gordon is off to Thailand as an exchange student to spend three weeks in Amnat Charoeon province, near the Laos border, where she will attend Huataphan Wittaya Kam School.

"I'm really excited to be chosen - over 300 New Zealand students applied to go and only 11 of us were chosen," said Mika.

Sponsored by the Royal Thai Embassy of New Zealand, the cultural exchange is intended to enrich the knowledge and understanding of Thai culture and language, and give Thai students a taste of New Zealand culture.

Fifteen-year-old Wanganui High School student Mika does not find the prospect as daunting as other students may because she already has experience of other cultures and languages, having lived in Abu Dhabi and Brunei while growing up.

Mum Julie Gordon worked as an English teacher in both countries and Mika and her younger sister Jeanne-Claire were home schooled by dad Craig.

The family returned to live in Wanganui just four months ago and Mika said it is good to be back.

"There were so many things I loved about living in the Persian Gulf and Borneo, but it is really good to have the freedom of wearing what I want to."

Mika and the other NZ students will spend a night in Bangkok on arrival and will meet the Thai Ministers of Education and Foreign Affairs the following day, before travelling to the homes of their host families.

Mika's host family live near the Huataphan Wittaya Kam School and she said she looks forward to meeting them.

"They have an 18-year-old daughter and the dad is a Buddhist scholar, and I'm told the mum is a hairdresser."

She will wear her Wanganui High School uniform in Thailand and will assist with teaching English classes at the school.

The Thai/NZ Language and Cultural Students Exchange Programme began three years ago and is one of several projects being sponsored by the Thai Embassy in Wellington to promote people-to-people links between Thailand and New Zealand.


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