"HERITAGE IN HARMONY," THE Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Youth Leadership Program

The Vermont Council on World Affairs (VCWA) has received a grant from the United States Department of State to design and implement "Heritage in Harmony," the Vermont-Québec-France Youth Leadership Quadricentennial Program, an exchange program for high school students from Vermont, Québec and France, on the theme of "cultural leadership." This grant was made possible through the efforts of Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing and the Vermont Lake Champlain Quadricentennial Commission. The program was designed to coincide with key events in Vermont related to the Lake Champlain Quadricentennial and spanned 6 weeks from June 28-August 8, 2009. The program began with the Québécois and French coming to Vermont for a 3-week program, followed by a 9-day program in Québec and concluding with a 12-day program in France. The program used the unifying theme of music to span geographic and cultural boundaries. Thirty six students - twelve from Vermont, twelve from Québec and twelve from France - were selected to form an international chorus which performed in all three countries. Two adults from each country accompanied the students. In addition to musical performances, the program focused on developing a sense of civic responsibility and commitment to our local and global communities, promoting mutual understanding among the people of the United States, Canada and France, and fostering personal and institutional ties among the participants from all three countries. Participants examined how historical and cultural sites in their communities reflect their identity, traditions, society, religion, values and patterns of behavior. They developed leadership skills, such as effective public speaking, team-building, conflict resolution, and goal-setting to prepare them to take action with what they have learned.

Student Participants in Heritage in Harmony:

• Ian Anderson (VT), 17, an 11th grade student at Stowe High School, is a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus as well as his school's chorus program and has participated in All-State and the New England Music Festivals. He enjoys acting and singing and has appeared in numerous school and local summer theatre productions. Ian is a member of his school's soccer, alpine skiing, and tennis teams.
• Wilhelm Anquetil (FR), 15, a student at Lycée Gambrier, has played piano since he was very young and viola for 4 years. He was part of a musical class for 4 years where he sang in a choir and played in an orchestra. This year he performs in a chamber music ensemble. He is fascinated by astronomy and enjoys playing table tennis and chess.
• Marie-Pier Bernard-Genest (QC), 16, an 11th grade (secondary 4) student at Ecole Marcelle-Mallet, plays the flute in her school orchestra. She is involved in many of her school's organizations. She is a skiing and swimming instructor. She also works as a lifeguard and she used to be a monitor in an English summer camp. She enjoys acting, singing and learning about foreign languages and cultures. She traveled to Tunisia in 2009 and participated in a student exchange in Canada.
• Bettina Boisivon (FR), 16, a student at Lycée Albert Sorel in Honfleur, aspires to become a mountain ranger and a rescue dog trainer. She recently began playing the guitar.
• Emilie Boukaïba (FR), 15, a student at Lycée Albert Sorel in Honfleur, sings in the Eric Satie music school chorus and has been playing piano for 8 years. She performed in two musical comedies, and enjoys sports and creative activities such as painting and design.
• Molly Breen (VT), 16, a 10th grade student at Burlington High School (BHS), sings in a student-run a cappella group called the Burlingtones and participates in her school's drama club. She also plays the clarinet in the BHS band, and has taken piano lessons for eight years. She recently traveled to France with the BHS French Club.
• Cameron Brownell (VT), 16, an 11th grade student at Colchester High School and member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus, enjoys musical theatre, tap dancing, playing the alto saxophone, and singing in various choirs. He is a member of the National Honor Society and has been recognized at his school for his passion for the French language.
• Emily Byers (VT), 15, a 9th grade student at Middlebury Union High School (MUHS), is a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Concert Chorale, her school chorus and the Camerata Ensemble. She has studied piano for 10 years and voice for 2 years. She enjoys figure-skating, horseback riding, skiing and participating on her school track team. She is also a member of the MUHS Scholars Bowl team and participates in a variety of community service projects.
• Hortense Cabouret (FR), 16, is an 11th-grade science student at Lycée Marie-Joseph, enjoys acting and attending plays. She has been playing the piano for four years. She helps at a scout camp in the summer.
• Mickaël Carrier (QC), 16, is an 11th grade student at École Marcelle-Mallet. He enjoys music, theater, and movies. He plays clarinet in his school orchestra and is a member of his school's badminton team. He also plays soccer and hockey and likes to ski.
• Anne Chicherie (FR), 15, is a 10th grade student at Lycée Albert Sorel in Honfleur. She enjoys singing and dancing and has been playing guitar for two months. She is also involved in sports, especially swimming, kayaking, archery, and climbing. She has traveled in Spain, Italy, and England, but never in the U.S. or in Canada.
• Louise Chicherie (FR), 15, is a 10th grade student at Lycée Albert Sorel in Honfleur. She aspires to become a lawyer. She enjoys singing, listening to music, and many sports, including archery, climbing, and canoeing. She has traveled in Spain, Italy, and England.
• Clémence Coutelle-Rebut (FR), 15, is a student at Lycée André Maurois and a member of a youth chorus. She aspires to become a judge. She lives in Equemauville with her parents and two sisters.
• Yohann Duchemin (FR), 17, a student at Institute Fremont, lives in Honfleur with both of his parents, his sister and his cat. He has a passion for competition-level sailing and diving.
• Alexandra Garon (QC), 16, an 11th grade (secondary four) student at Académie Saint-Louis in Québec City, enjoys singing, art, drama, and jogging.
• Anna Marie Gavin (VT), 16, an 11th grade student at Mount Mansfield Union High School and a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus, is very active in the practice and promotion of art, whether through film, music, or drawing.
• Naomie Gendron (QC), 15, an 11th grade (secondary four) student at École Marcelle-Mallet school has studied piano for 6 years, and more recently guitar. She enjoys motocross, snowboarding and go-kart racing. She plays tenor saxophone in her school orchestra and has a special interest in science.
• Charlotte Goodenow (VT), 16, a 9th grade student at Colchester High School and a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus, studies voice and is involved in numerous choir and theater programs, including her school's Chamber Choir and the Colchester Theatre Company.
• Nikolas Kaim (VT), 15, a 9th grade student at Colchester High School (CHS) and a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus, sings in the CHS Chamber Choir and plays clarinet in the CHS band. He is active in the Colchester Theatre Company and enjoys playing the piano. He played football and was on the track team in middle school and participated in the Odyssey of the Mind program for four years.
• Chloé Lamontagne (QC), 16, is an 11th grade (secondary four) student at École Marcelle-Mallet. She has been singing since she was 10 year old and enjoys writing her own songs. She also plays the violin, the piano and the trombone. She participates in sports, and she particularly enjoys basketball.
• Alexandra Lapointe (QC), 15, is a 10th grade (secondary three) student at École Marcelle-Mallet. She enjoys everything artistic - music, movies, theater, etc. She also enjoys sports, is a cheerleader and loves to dance.
• Simon Lapointe (QC), 15, a 10th grade (secondary three) student at École Marcelle Mallet, enjoys music, languages, foreign culture, and drama. He also likes to travel. He studied bass guitar for one year and trombone for a year and a half. He attended an immersion school where he learned English and Spanish. He is in a program called "Pair aidant" ("peer helper") that listens to and helps other students if necessary.
• Gabriel Lavoie (QC), 15, a 10th grade (secondary three) student at École Marcelle- Mallet, has studied the piano for 4 years and plays the trumpet in his school orchestra. His passion is to compose music on his piano. He is also a member of his school improvisation team as well as a community league. He also participated in several plays this year at school, took acting classes and was recruited to participate in a play at "La Maison Jaune". He was awarded a scholarship while in his first year of competitive amateur boxing. He also likes to ski and he is working on his bronze cross in swimming.
• Pierre-Olivier Millaire (QC), 15, an 11th grade (secondary four) student at École Marcelle-Mallet, has played piano for 5 years and is in the school orchestra. He likes to travel and learn about different cultures. He also enjoys playing sports.
• Antoine Montier (FR), 15, attends Marie-Joseph High School in Trouville. He is a national-level swimmer and has been Normandy champion in several swimming events. He has sung in a choir and enjoys listening to music. He speaks Spanish and Italian in addition to French and English.
• Laurence Quirion (QC), 16, an 11th grade (secondary four) student at École Marcelle-Mallet, has studied hip-hop dance for 5 years. She is a member of her school's basketball, cross-country, and athletics teams. She also plays the trombone in the school orchestra. In addition, she enjoys wakeboarding and riding her bike.
• Roxanne Rapaport (VT), 16, an 11th grade student at Harwood Union High School, enjoys singing, writing and learning about foreign languages and cultures. She is a member of the National Honor Society, traveled to Rwanda in 2008, was selected as a violinist for the May 2009 Vermont All-State Orchestra, and sang in the 2009 All New England Music Festival.
• Eva Riou (FR), 15, a student at Lycée Albert Sorel in Honfluer, has sung in the Erik Satie Choir for 2 years. As a soprano, she has participated in various shows that were created and staged for this choir. Eva has also played the piano and the flute for 10 years. As a member of the Honfleur Music School Harmony, she has participated in various exchanges with foreign music orchestras, especially with German ones. She also enjoys tennis.
• Théo Riou (FR), 16, a student at Institut Fremont, plays percussion, the piano, and the saxophone. He discovered singing at Honfleur Music School. He enjoys tennis, basketball, and baseball. He is particularly interested in current events, foreign policy, and economics.
• Valérie Roy (QC), 16, an 11th grade (secondary four) student at École Marcelle-Mallet, is a trombonist in her school orchestra. She sang in many concerts at school. She has played piano for 7 years and enjoys all kinds of sports. During the school year, she was a member of her school's basketball, cross-country and athletics teams.
• Joseph Russ (VT), 15, a 9th grade student at Burlington High School (BHS), is a member of the BHS freshman chorus and the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus. He enjoys hiking, fishing, sailing, camping with his family, and working with horses.
• Sarah Skinner (VT), 17, an 11th grade student at Northfield High School, has participated in seven school musicals. She is part of the Northfield choral group, a member of the varsity cross country team, and a member of the Vermont Archaeological Society.
• William Thompson (VT), 15, a 9th grade student at Milton High School, has been singing in vocal groups since the age of 11 and is a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus as well as his high school chorus. He aspires to attend the Juilliard School of Arts.
• Elise Tremblay (QC), 15, a 10th grade (secondary three) student at École Marcelle-Mallet, enjoys traveling, music and making new friends. She loves sports and being outdoors. She sees the future like a book where she is the principal character.
• Gregory Zengilowski (VT), 16, a 10th grade student at Champlain Valley Union High School (CVU), is a member of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Chorus and the CVU Men's Choruses, and has performed in Lyric, Stowe and CVU theatre productions. He enjoys playing the guitar and the piano, and helping others through community service.

Heritage in Harmony Chaperones:

• Carl Cabou (FR) holds degrees in Information Technologies from Descartes University, Orsay University, and CNAM in France. He volunteers for a local school organization in programs for youth. Carl enjoys biking, basketball, running, chess, and video games.
• Elliott Crowe (VT), a graduate of Mount Mansfield Union High School and the University of North Florida (UNF), currently works with youth with special needs at Essex High School. While studying at UNF, Elliott took classes abroad in both France and Spain. He is a Disaster Response Team Leader at the Northern Vermont Chapter of the American Red Cross.
• Anne-Marie Harvey (QC) teaches history, geography and economy at École Marcelle-Mallet. She graduated from Laval University. She spent three months in Australia as a high school exchange student, a month in Brazil while she was in college, and a semester teaching in Paris. She has also been a tour guide, leading educational trips for schools visiting Québec City, Montréal and Ottawa. In her free time, she enjoys reading, traveling, running and hiking.
• Audrey Lemonnier (FR) graduated from the University of Caen in 2006 and now teaches English to sophomores, juniors and seniors at Lycée Marie Joseph in Trouville-Sur-Mer. She organized an exchange program for young students from Deauville, France who went to Lexington, Kentucky where Audrey herself was once an exchange student. She has also traveled to New Zealand, Spain, and England.
• Rebecca Thomas (VT), a resident of Westford and a graduate of Essex High School, is currently a student at Hampshire College. She spent a year in Paraguay as an AFS high school exchange student and enjoys playing the oboe and the English horn. She is an alumna of the Vermont Youth Orchestra and has played with the Mount Holyoke Symphony Orchestra and the Amherst College Symphony Orchestra.

The Heritage in Harmony Staff:

• VERMONT
  • Carol Casey, Project Manager: A native Vermonter, Carol spent much of her professional life working in the political and governmental arena in Washington, D.C., including five years as head of the Political Institutions and Processes Section of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. After returning to Vermont and since 2003, she has been the Director of the International Visitor Leadership Program of the Vermont Council on World Affairs. A graduate of Smith College, she majored in International Relations and spent her junior year abroad in Geneva, Switzerland. She was a member of an American Council of Young Political Leaders delegation to Syria, Jordan and Israel in 1979 and has traveled extensively throughout Canada and Europe. Once fluent in French, she can still understand it -- si vous parlez doucement -- and can read it, but no longer speaks it very well.
  • Gwendy Lauritzen, Project Coordinator: Gwendy is a graduate of the University of Vermont with degrees in business and marketing as well as fashion design. Throughout her professional career she has been a leader in marketing the travel and tourism industry from Maine to Vermont. She is a partner at Notch Above Tours, a Vermont-based full service tour company that provides single and multi day vacations, destination management excursions, motor coach tours and student class trips.
  • Katherine Willis, Assistant Project Manager: Katherine graduated from Amherst College as a French and philosophy major in May 2007. She spent the fall semester of her junior year studying abroad at the Sorbonne in Paris where she lived with a Parisian host family. Last year she lived in the Southern French city of Montpellier where she taught English in rural elementary schools and shared an apartment with two French graduate school students. She can speak, read and understand French very well. This year she sang in the Vermont Symphony Orchestra Chorus and the Bella Voce Women's Chorus of Vermont and has performed as Tricia in Lyric Theater's A Chorus Line.
• QUÉBEC
• Robert Laberge, Québec Coordinator: Born and raised in Québec City, Robert has been involved in tourism for over 25 years. A graduate of Laval University where he majored in Tourism Development Management, he served as project manager for Hospitality and National Affairs for the 400th anniversary of Québec in 2008. He worked in the Magdelen Islands for 10 years as an events manager. He has previously been a receptive operator in Québec and traveled extensively in the northeastern part of the American continent and France. He has hosted many VIP and corporate parties as a professional historical tour guide of Québec City. He is fluent in both French and English, practices Spanish and loves Italian.
• FRANCE
• Christine Helary Sawyer, France Coordinator: Born and raised in France, Christine crossed the Atlantic to obtain her MBA (master in business administration) from Bowling Green State University, Ohio. She then pursued her business career in Montréal, Québec, where she has lived for almost 30 years. During that time, she was a volunteer hosting family for three years for the world-wide organization AFS (American Field Service), when she welcomed students of 16-17 years of age for a complete school year. She hosted successively a boy from Mexico, a boy from Brazil and a girl from Venezuela. She also has a 23-year old son. Two years ago, she married an American citizen and has shared her time between Montréal and Vermont for the past 7 years. She is the founder of the Birchwood Ridge Group, a communications company. She also maintains a website in English and French for tourists traveling to Vermont (www.travel-vermont.net), and has designed a tour, "When this land was called New France," to Québec, Vermont and New York State in partnership with a U.S. travel agency as part of the celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Lake Champlain.

VERMONT COUNCIL ON WORLD AFFAIRS

• Dr. Gail Stevenson, Executive Director: Gail served as the Director of International Programs at Champlain College. She is the former Director of the American Collegiate Consortium and a consultant to the Salzburg Seminar. Previously, she was a consultant with the World Bank, and has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. She was an AFS student in Norway and spent a semester of college in Russia and a semester teaching in Belarus on a Fulbright scholarship. She holds a B.A. from Middlebury College, a cand. mag. from the University in Oslo and a Ph. D. in Economics from American University. Gail is fluent in Norwegian and Russian, and speaks some French. Gail will be guiding you through the strategic action planning process and your evaluation of the program.
• Katarina Lisaius, Administrative Assistant: Katarina has been the Administrative Assistant at VCWA since January 2009. A member of the class of 2011, she is currently studying Political Science and Pre-Health at Saint Michael's College and will spend her 2009 fall semester in Mali. She participated in a service learning trip to Jordan in 2006. Katarina hopes to expand her knowledge of culture and geography while helping out with Heritage in Harmony and other Council activities.
• Haley Peterson, Intern: A native Vermonter, Haley is volunteering her time this summer to assist with Heritage in Harmony and other programs. A member of the class of 2011, she is currently studying World Politics at Hamilton College. She loves traveling: she toured China as violinist in the Vermont Youth Orchestra and has also been to Italy. She has spent every summer of her life in Ontario and was a counselor for two years at Camp Northway Lodge in Algonquin Park in Ontario. She understands and speaks basic French.
• Sarah Toigo, Intern: Sarah is volunteering her time this summer to assist with the visit of the Iraqi youth group and other programs. A member of the class of 2011, she is currently studying International Affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. She spent the spring semester of 2008 studying at the City University of London, England, and will be spending the fall semester of 2009 studying at the American University of Paris in Paris, France. She understands and speaks basic French.