General News
3 January, 2025
AUSSIE LIFESTYLE WINS OVER EXCHANGE STUDENT
By CHRIS EARL FRED Gjorup has crammed heaps into his nine months as an exchange student in Australia discovering Aussie Rules football, rabbit shooting, trips to the beach. He’s also become a local champion at Boort, taking up cricket for the...
By CHRIS EARL
FRED Gjorup has crammed heaps into his nine months as an exchange student in Australia discovering Aussie Rules football, rabbit shooting, trips to the beach.
He’s also become a local champion at Boort, taking up cricket for the first time last October, proving more than handy as a bowler and ending up a member of the Boort Yando junior side that won the Upper Loddon association premiership.
The youngster from Copenhagen, Denmark, was at Pyramid Hill on Saturday cheering the football side from the sidelines, equally committed in saying that he’ll be back to Australia, and Boort, sooner rather than later.
This Saturday, he flies home after final farewells to a Boort bevy of new Australian mates who welcomed him last year as a World Education Program exchange student.
Fred said he had enjoyed experiencing the culture. the food and Australia’s school life.
“In Denmark I live in a city ... it’s very different to Australian life in Boort,” he said.
“I’ve driven tractors and headers this year and met the boys in football and cricket, sports I had never heard of before coming here.”
Fred has become a quick convert to Australian Rules football.
“It’s the best sport in the world. I like the physical contact and that you use your hands and legs ... it’s very different to soccer,” Fred observed.
Fred clearly has Boort Magpies marked as his favourite team while admitting Melbourne takes front position in the AFL competition.
School routines have proven very different as well. “In Denmark there are more subjects - 12 - and I was doing four languages - Danish, English, German and French.” Between cheering for the Magpies, he again comes back to expressing a love for the Australian lifestyle.
“I don’t like living in cities. They are cramped and crowded. In the country, you get a private life,” he said. “And you can go hunting for foxes and rabbits.
“So I’m already planning to return, to save money and be back here within 12 months.”
Fred was hosted by Brooke and Kane Arnold for his nine-month stay in Boort. “We really will miss Fred, we couldn’t have imagined him fitting in as easily as he did,” Brooke said.
World Education Program Australian community engagement manager Trina Henderson said: “I love what these students bring to small communities and what you wonderful communities give to these students who have chosen to come and live the Aussie life.
“I’d love if we could also hopefully find some more families in the area to host students that are coming in July to Australia from all around the world.”
World Education Program Australia Ltd is an independent, incorporated, not-for-profit Australian student exchange organisation registered and approved by the education departments across Australia.
It was formed in 2001 in cooperation with WEP International which now has offices in Brussels, Turin, Milan, Lyon, Paris, Rosario, Rome and Oderzo. Trina says WEP Australia has enabled thousands of students to open a door to a rewarding and successful future through education abroad.
“We love placing students in rural communities as they really get a taste of the great Australian lifestyle and we always find warm, loving families ready to open up their home to these courageous students,” she said. “Students arrive from Italy, France, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, the UK and plenty of other countries. They are aged between 15 and 18 and are placed in Australian schools for the duration of their stay.”