Oro exchange students are back

Six Kagay-anon student delegates are back from Norfolk City of Virgina for a 15-day summer student exchange

program from July 1 to 15. City Mayor Oscar Moreno said the program aims to strengthen the relationship between the sister city ties of Norfolk and Cagayan de Oro.

“Norfolk is very much like Cagayan de Oro, it’s very strategic, it’s also by the bay, it has one of the biggest ports or harbor in the eastern side of the United States,” Moreno said.

“We hope to put Cagayan de Oro in the map,” he added

Eileen San Juan, head of the Local Economic and Investment Promotions Office said this is the first batch of the student exchange program.

Two years ago, an adult exchange program which included teachers, school administrators, and professionals was also initiated between the two cities.

Ma. Dulce Potenciano, Local School Board executive director said choosing the 6 delegates was a very rigorous process, pointing out that among the qualifications is he or she must be a native of Cagayan de Oro, and must know the city’s culture and history.

“After the program, I’m sure they are changed and different persons because of the lifechanging experience they went through during their stay there. They had visits of the tourist spots ad museums, they had exchange of ideas with the youth there,” Potenciano said.

Earl Joy Lopina of the Xavier University High School said, the visit was very brief but that “it was successful”.

“It’s an opportunity for us to share our identity and culture, we really worked as one to strengthen the sister city relations,” Lopina said.

“It’s really building friendship and family internationally,” Shaddrach John Lloyd Daba said, of Lourdes College High School.

The Cagayan de Oro-Norfolk High School Summer Visitor Exchange Program is a people-topeople exchange program which aims to bring the youth from both cities “closer together in a brief yet rich summer activity,” wherein high school students will stay with “host siblings”.

The whole duration of the students’ stay in the US includes: tours to monuments, museums, parks, factories and sites unique to Norfolk; participation in cultural activities in the host city; and visiting the Philippine Embassy in the District of Columbia.

The delegates include Daba, Lopina, Lance Nathaniel Elot of the Xavier University High School (XUHS), Reine Julia Madriaga of XU, Marielle Paguidopon of Lourdes College High School, and Elkanah Ricardo of the Oro Christian Grace School.