Rankin Inlet (Sep 25/06) - It's important for Nunavut youth to see some of the world outside their community, says a young Rankin Inlet resident who spent the summer in the African nation of Botswana.

Andrea Kowmuk, 18, spent six weeks in the village of D'Kar as part of the Northern Youth Abroad Program.

"I wasn't thinking of the program, I was just thinking of the trip," Kowmuk said with a chuckle. "But after being in the program I learned so much stuff that...it was worth it."

Kowmuk was part of a group of Northern youth who volunteered by performing repairs on local buildings.

With all the attention paid to poverty and the scourge of AIDS that has ravaged the African continent, Kowmuk said she was a little peeved at spending so much time doing what amounted to home renovations, including a lot of sanding.

"This program is supposed to give us education through work and travel...how is this educating me?"

But she's quick to add that her group went out on development education days, that included seeing programs designed to help those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Kowmuk said Batswana (the plural word for people from Botswana) were poor, many living in houses made of mud and straw, but it didn't stop them from being friendly.

"They try to make the best out of what they have," she said.

And while Kowmuk might not have necessarily picked Botswana of all the places in the world to visit, she got the taste of world travel she'd been craving, especially since she's thinking about becoming an international pilot.

"I knew it would have been a good practice," she said.

The Northern Youth Abroad Program is the perfect cure for the sense of isolation that besets many young people in northern communities, according to Kowmuk.

"There are people who just need to get out of here and see the world," she said. "It's not all about just one town."