Childers Will Visit Australia As People To People Ambassador

Stephanie Childers

By Joe Naiman

Ramona’s Stephanie Childers will create some lasting memories this summer, when she spends 15 days in Australia as an ambassador in the People to People program.

The 11-year-old sixth-grader at Ramona Elementary School will spend June 30 through July 14 representing the United States before Australian youth. The members of Childers’ delegation will spend their time on the eastern coast of Australia.

The People to People program was created by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during the Cold War in an effort to build worldwide unity. An ambassador must be nominated in one of three ways: by a teacher, school or former ambassador. The ambassador is not told how he or she was nominated. Ambassadors range in age from fifth and sixth grade through college.

Childers will be part of a 40-student delegation of fifth-grade and sixth-grade ambassadors. Twenty students are from Southern California; the other 20 are from Ohio.

Although the primary mission of the ambassadors will be to speak to Australian children about the United States and about their schools, activities will include visits to the Sydney Opera House, Sydney Bay, an aboriginal cultural center, “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin’s park, and an Australian ranch. Ambassadors also will be able to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef.

Ambassadors will have a dress code and behavioral standards, and four chaperons will accompany the 40 students. All chaperons must be in the education profession. The students must make journals of each day, and the teachers will read those journals nightly. Ambassadors’ parents will have access to a 24-hour hotline. In addition to the chaperons, the ambassadors will have a native Australian as their guide upon arrival.

Ambassadors must attend training sessions and their families are responsible for paying for the trip. Childers raised approximately one-quarter of the money herself through candle sales, a booth at the Christmas tree lighting, a yard sale and other activities.

Childers and her family have been preparing for the trip since September.

“It’s been a family commitment this whole year to prepare for it,” said her mother, Joy Childers.

Childers’ father, Gary, is a safety officer for Hubbs Sea World Research Institute. Her mother is the assistant vice president for business development at Ramona National Bank. Childers is the oldest of three children: sister Kara is 5, and brother Jonny will turn 4 on June 25.

Childers has visited Mexico — her grandparents retired to Tecate — but the Australian trip will be her first time overseas. Childers was born in San Diego, and her family moved from Lakeside to Ramona nine years ago.

Childers received straight A’s on her sixth-grade report cards as well as straight E’s for citizenship. She won the school’s spelling bee this year, and she is also in leadership training with the Boys and Girls Club.