JAPAN is soon to become home to one of Euroa’s brightest young students and budding global citizen in the making.
Oakley Paul, 16, farewelled her family and friends over the past week and took a flight on Saturday to Toyama on the western side of Japan’s Honshu Island.
Oakley has been sponsored by the Euroa Rotary Club and will be hosted by the local Toyama Mirai Rotary Club as part of a one-year Rotary exchange studentship.
The Euroa club welcomed family and friends to a farewell breakfast for Oakley at the Magpie in Seven Creeks Park on Wednesday, January 15.
Oakley said consideration of undertaking the trip was ‘definitely worth it’ and was an idea birthed during a camp she attended which taught lessons in solitude and independence.
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“I went on a nine-week-long camp at Marlo near Lakes Entrance at the start of year 9, and I had no contact with home,” Oakley said.
“It was a leadership camp with some students from my school and they wanted us to bond with everyone.
“So, I thought to myself that if I can do that – be away from my family – for that long, then I could do it for a year.”
Oakley said that although she had studied Japanese since year 3, she was not fluent.
“But that’s the aim of going – I want to be fluent.”
Oakley has just completed year 10 at Euroa Secondary College and will now enroll at a local school in that equivalent year before returning home to commence year 11 at the start of 2026.
Being enrolled with a younger cohort on her return is not worth a second thought to Oakley as the determination and maturity in her enthusiasm is looking at a much broader picture.
“My goal is to become fluent in Japanese, come back to study psychology here and then return there to work,” she said.
“I also want to be able to become a part of the families I am living with there so that it would be great to have a family in Japan to go back and visit.
“I want to be a global citizen.”
Oakley will have four host families during the year and said she will take up every opportunity given to her to become a more independent and confident person.
"As an ambassador for Australia, I want to be able to just be me and be grateful that I am there, that my parents know I will be safe,” she said.
“I want to be a good example representing my club and families both here and in Japan.”
Oakley is the first exchange student from Euroa in 10 years and Rotary hopes to have a Japanese student come to Euroa later this year.
