COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of a lot of things since it began its spread in late 2019, but it hasn't stopped Great Lakes College student Camden Ceccato from heading to Germany for a year of overseas learning.
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The 15-year-old from Forster arrived in Frankfurt on Sunday, January 24 and will spend the next 12 months being hosted by families in Iserlohn, Fulda and Dinslaken.
During this time he'll complete Year 10 and do his best to become fluent in German, while also taking part in a host of extracurricular activities.
A native of Germany, Camden's mother Ariane said it hadn't been easy to organise her son's year away, but she was glad it had finally come to fruition.
The trip was originally meant to be completed as a part of Rotary's Youth Exchange program, but when the program was cancelled in April, Mrs Ceccato said they decided to see if they could organise it themselves.
"When they cancelled it, Camden was already quite excited about it," she said.
"So I said: 'Look, I'll see what I can do.'"
Calling on some of her contacts in Germany, Mrs Ceccato was surprised to find a number of families who were keen to host Camden in 2021.
Planning progressed from there, with securing a flight out of Australia proving to be the next major hurdle.
A total of three flights were booked and subsequently cancelled by the airlines in the lead up to Camden's departure, before the family finally secured a ticket to Germany just five days before he left.
Mrs Ceccato said the whole process was quite nerve-racking, particularly when Camden had been looking forward to it for so long.
"It would've been absolutely devastating if it didn't work out for him," she said.
Mrs Ceccato felt the trip was going to be a great experience for her eldest son, who had maintained solid grades throughout 2020 despite the challenges remote learning presented.
She was also excited about Camden improving his German - which he'd been learning since Year 7 - and discovering more about his cultural heritage.
"It's nice for me to know he's learning about German culture," she said.
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Mrs Ceccato said Camden would be free to come home once his studies finished, but the option was there for him to stay a little longer if he wanted to.
"I left it up to him," she said.
"Of course in December he can come home and have Christmas here, but I'm thinking a Christmas in Europe with snow and everything could be an interesting experience for him as well."
And while the COVID situation in Europe has taken a turn for the worse in recent months, Mrs Ceccato said she was not overly concerned about Camden's well-being.
He'll be staying with pharmacists at each of his host houses and will be able to take a test at home if needed.
With Germany undertaking stage one of its vaccination program already, there's also a chance Camden could be vaccinated against the virus when he turns 16 later in the year.
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