one spring break at a time
Bucking the traditional spring fling at the beach, Yale students will be fanning out all over the globe this spring vacation -- some to learn, some to do community service and some to do a combination of both.
Among the Yale-sponsored programs in which students will be participating during the March 3-20 break are an election watch in El Salvador, a gospel singing tour in Capetown, South Africa, and studying sustainable development in the Mayan village of Muchucuxah, Mexico.
Students at the School of Management (SOM) have an array of options from which to choose, including pro-bono consultancy work for socially focused organizations in Madagascar; a visit to some 20 leading companies in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Beijing; and a tour of major corporations in Nigeria. The SOM-sponsored programs are meant to boost students' awareness of business opportunities and challenges in those countries as well as to provide them with networking contacts for future endeavors.
In Madacascar, SOM students will assist Habitat for Humanity, the Andrew Lees Trust and Mad Imports with business development and environmental projects. Habitat for Humanity has enlisted the students' help in creating an eco-tourism marketing plan to attract more volunteers to the country. For the non-profit Andrew Lees Trust, students will create a business plan for a co-operative style coconut plantation. Mad Imports, a socially responsible company that sells handmade art and accessories from Madagascar and Kenya, has asked students to help them develop new marketing and distribution strategies.
Yale business students who want to explore opportunities at home can take advantage of a one-week trip to the nation's capital where they will meet with various business leaders and politicians including Illinois Senators Barak Obama and Dick Durbin, NPR reporter Juan Williams, AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and Tom Donahue, president of the Chamber of Commerce.
The School of Medicine's Department of Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) is another Yale professional school offering its students an alternative spring trip. This is the fourth year that the EPH student group Yale HealthCORE will travel to the fishing village Isla de Mendez, El Salvador, to perform public health outreach.
Yale undergraduates seeking meaningful ways of using their spring break can also choose from a broad menu of alternative trips organized by Yale College student groups. The Yale International Relations Association (YIRA) offers students a chance to participate in the Election Observer Mission in El Salvador. During their eight-day trip, students will attend embassy meetings and candidates' debates, and they will observe the process that will decide 262 municipal elections for mayor, city council and representatives in the legislative assembly for the next three years.
Reach Out, a group that organizes international service alternatives for spring break, and the Joseph Slikfa Center for Jewish Life at Yale are sponsoring a trip to Muchucuxcah, Mexico. Ten students will work with El Hombre Sobre La Tierra (Humankind on the Earth). Focusing on the connections between social justice, service and Judaism while learning about grassroots sustainable development, the group will work on eco-tourism, agro-ecological and potable water projects in efforts to promote a self-sufficient environment and to integrate women into the economy.
Reach Out has also organized trips to Bulgaria, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
In Bulgaria students will have the opportunity to explore that country's transition from communism to democracy while performing service at the Rodopski Orphanage in Plovdiv.
Reach Out students in Jamaica will participate in a variety of community programs, including service activities in local schools, nursing homes and hospitals. In addition to these volunteer activities, students will meet with Jamaican political officials and religious groups.
In the Dominican Republic, students will work in a community of mostly Haitian migrant workers, documenting oral histories, teaching English and helping to build a community center.
Students in El Salvador will study how politics have affected the country's development. They will meet with government officials and serve as international election observers during the national elections on March 12, 2006. In Guatemala students will work in a children's day care center.
In collaboration with the New Haven/Leon Sister City Project, students will have the opportunity to observe the development challenges of Nicaragua by participating in various service projects and meeting with local leaders.
Another undergraduate organization, the Yale Gospel Choir, which has for several years taken its music on the road in the United States during spring break, will this year head to Capetown, South Africa, where members will sing at schools and community centers and will join with the University of Capetown Choir for a concert.
Under the auspices of the Yale College Council for CARE, students will volunteer in communities in Sierra Leone. Students, a Yale adviser and members of the CARE staff will travel to Freetown, which has been a sister city to New Haven since 1839. This is the first time that a non-governmental organization has ever hosted college students as part of an educational journey to Africa. On their return to the United States, students will share their experience via teleconference with the Yale community.
The Yale College organization Project Opportunity (affiliated with the national program Opportunity Rocks) is urging students who have not yet signed on to one of the other alternative programs to volunteer for Katrina relief work over spring break. Project Opportunity has arranged for student volunteers to be housed and fed in New Orleans. Two weeks before Spring Break begins, 25 students were already signed up.
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Stephen Anderson named Diebold Professor of Linguistics
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'Dangerous' decline of foreign news in U.S. topic of Poynter Lecture . . .
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Rosa DeLauro honored for commitent to women's health research
Yale Books in Brief
Campus Notes
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