Louise Smith – Global Xchange - Host mum
Louise Smith from Caithness was a host Mum to James Blackburn from Stirling, Scotland and Faless Mukumbwa from Chitipa in Northern Malawi. James and Faless were two participants in Global Xchange, a programme that brings young people together to work on community development projects and develop cross cultural understanding. Here Louise tells us how the experience has excited and inspired her children, and how the family and wider community have benefited from the Global Xchange.
Why I became a host Mum
The reasons behind me becoming a host mum are actually quite varied. Through my life I have spent some time living overseas and I found it was a lot more informative than going on holiday so I thought maybe my children could get some of that by having people coming and stay with us.
There aren’t that many different cultures in our community and I thought they could get a bit of experience of different cultures they wouldn’t ordinarily get so we did it for those reasons.
What my children have learnt
I think the children have learnt a lot, and they have developed an interest in what happens in other countries, and what is the world actually like.
At the start of the 10 weeks, my son spent a lot of time on the Playstation but now he sees there something interesting going on in the house so he’s giving up some of his bad habits, has started collecting coins and seems a lot more interested in the countries they’re from and what it is like there.
My daughter, she loves all the singing and dancing and different cultural things and has really thrown herself into those things with enthusiasm
With regards to my children’s school, we’ve done a couple of projects there that have involved GX the school is now keen to set up a link with another school in Malawi and I’ve been talking to a teacher about that so I think that’s a real positive thing.
I think it’s becoming more and more important for children to appreciate what’s going on in different cultures around the world because of what’s happening to the planet, we really are a global community and need to look after the planet.
What our community has learnt
I think our community at large has also benefited from having GX here. We see so many stereotypes on television, and if that’s how we learn about those cultures then it isn’t a good thing but to actually meet the people and come across them working in the community means you get to understand their culture better.
I don’t think there’s a person in Caithness, with a population of 25,000, who doesn’t know about GX or that there are Malawians here.
Young people as ambassadors
I have been very, very impressed with how mature and responsible the young people are, I was never that mature and responsible are their age so it does fill me with hope for the youth.
The Scottish ones will be very good ambassadors for Scotland when they go over there and the Malawian people who come over here are very good ambassadors for their country so it does restore your faith that the youth of today do make a huge contribution society if we let them.