By Kim Choe
An Auckland teenager will head to Turkey next week on a cultural exchange with a difference.
She was given the youth award because of her very special connection with one of the New Zealanders that fought there in World War One.
An Auckland high school hall seems a long way from the battleground at Anzac Cove but that's where sixteen-year-old Devon Francis will be this Anzac Day, thanks to her great-great-grandfather - Lieutenant Colonel Edmund Bowler.
“He was the first New Zealander ashore on Anzac Cove. He went with the Australian
beach landing officers,” says Devon.
Bowler was the only one of the initial landing party to survive the Turkish attack. In the three days following the disastrous battle, he remained on the beach to help evacuate his injured comrades.
His young descendant wrote an essay about him that won her the AFS Gallipoli Youth Award. She'll spend six weeks with a Turkish family, going to school and attending ANZAC Day services at Gallipoli.
“I think it'll be sad remembering who was there and who lost their lives. Because I had family members who lost their lives as well there. But yeah, I think ... just the emotions,” says Devon.
But there is something it'll still be hard to appreciate.
“I can't imagine my father or brother leaving my family to go overseas, and not knowing if they were going to come back or not,” says Devon.
Francis' family will host a Turkish student here in return, whose ancestor fought against theirs.
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