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MLI seeks host families for July

Japan exchange

Muskoka Language International (MLI) is looking for families willing to host Japanese students coming to the Coast on July 25.

This is the eighth year MLI has organized a group of 15 and 16-year-old females from Japan to come to the Sunshine Coast to learn about Canadian culture, MLI home-stay coordinator Cheryl Wilson said.

The students will be here from July 25 to Aug. 11, spending their weekdays in school at Elphinstone Secondary and their nights and weekends living with their host families.

“There’s an academic coordinator who organizes all their schooling for the two weeks and they rent Elphinstone out. So they attend there from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. during the weekdays,” Wilson said. “They also do one field trip as a group on one of the weekends. I know that they’ve gone over to Grouse Mountain in the past and the planetarium. So they’ll do something on the mainland and the other time they’re with their home-stay families. So whatever the home-stay families do, that’s what they do.”

Host families must provide a separate bedroom for the MLI student in their care and provide their meals and transportation to and from events. Families are compensated $527 for the 17 days students are with them.

Wilson said families of all makes and sizes can apply to host a Japanese student.

“The only ones we can’t have are single males,” Wilson said, noting all applicants must undergo a criminal records check.

If you would like to host an MLI student contact Wilson at cwilson@mliesl.com or call 778-458-2583.

Learn more about MLI at www.mliesl.com.