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Alternative Breaks Attract Students to Half Dozen Locations this Spring
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| photo
courtesy of Rene' Arrowsmith |
Students
often mimic birds during spring break by migrating south to warmer weather.
But some have chosen to travel to South Dakota to be immersed in the Sioux
community. Seventeen will go to Venezuela to learn about President Hugo
Chavez’s social reforms. Some AU students will even remain in the
District to learn about AIDS Policy and Health Practices in Washington,
D.C.
Ninety AU students will travel to six locations - Chicago; Venezuela; Biloxi, Miss.; San Francisco; South
Dakota; and Washington, D.C. - this spring break
as part of AU’s alternative
break program. The trips, reflecting the trend of past years,
attracted many interested students and filled up quickly.
Each trip in run by two student leaders who planned
the trip in detail. It is up to graduate or undergraduate students to
find a faculty/staff sponsor and propose a trip idea to the Community
Service Center to gain approval. Zach Baxter, an SIS senior, worked
with coleader Carrie Johnson, an SPA sophomore, to plan the spring trip
to South Dakota. “I hope our trip inspires participants to not be
satisfied with just ‘visiting’ places, rather, they will want
to know them and learn how to advocate for them,” he says.
The South Dakota trip will focus on teaching students the history of U.S.
government-Native American relations by immersing them in the Sioux community
through visiting shelters, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and schools.
It’s not all business, though. Students will have the opportunity
to visit famous sites like the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore, and the Crazy
Horse Memorial.
Audrey
Pernick, an SOC senior, is coleading the Chicago trip designed around
empowering urban youth. After participating in last spring's trip to Appalachia,
Pernick wants to give others the opportunity for an eye-opening experience.
"I hope to make a difference in the lives of the kids we meet [and]
that everyone from the group takes something from what we will do, whether
they come back to D.C. and try to build their own alternative break trip
or sign up for the D.C. Reads program," says Pernick. "I hope
that our group members will come away knowing that we all have a responsibility
to give back somehow."
The cost of each trip, which ranges from $200 to $2,000, is designed to
be college student friendly, while the themes and site visits are geared
toward AU students’ interests. “[The trips] are about expanding
our horizons,” says Marcy Fink Campos, director of AU's Community
Service Center. "Because our world is so global we have a responsibility
to learn more and do more about the global issues and problems that exist.
It’s a life transforming experience for many students because they
have an interest in a particular issue or country and are able to understand
them firsthand rather than doing it through textbook learning.”
The
concept of alternative breaks began in 1999 when AU Chaplain Joe Eldridge
led a group of graduate students to Honduras to do service work after
Hurricane Mitch stormed through the region. Other past alternative winter
and spring break trips include: Belize, Mexico, Nicaragua, the Thailand-Burma
border, Vietnam, Zambia, Appalachia, and North Carolina.
Alternative
summer break trips for 2007 include:
- Ecuador: Land Rights in Indigenous Communities
- Guatemala: Fair Trade
- South Africa: Women’s Initiative in Apartheid and AIDS
-Tara Shlimowitz '08
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