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Student Service trip to Nicaragua
Every summer, Hopkins offers an international community service trip. This past summer between June 20th and 30th, a delegation of 15 senior school students made its mark on Leon, Nicaragua for a service and cultural immersion experience in association with the New Haven/Leon Sister City project.
Every summer, Hopkins offers an international community service trip. This past summer between June 20th and 30th, a delegation of 15 senior school students made its mark on Leon, Nicaragua for a service and cultural immersion experience in association with the New Haven/Leon Sister City project. Chosen to travel on this occasion were Doug Steinberg, Sarah Levine, Matt Weber, Lily Philben, Jess Cohen, Nick Aeppel, Ryan D'Souza, Danielle Young, Ryan Daley, Dana Apkon, Micha Thompson, Eric Coffin-Gould, Andrew Boone, and Dan Shank, as well as three students from Horace Mann School in New York. They were accompanied by Hopkins faculty member Susan Bennitt, and by Silas Meredith, former faculty member now teaching at Horace Mann.
Students stayed with Nicaraguan families in a peaceful neighborhood in Leon, Nicaragua's second largest city. They had constant opportunities to speak and improve their Spanish and otherwise participate in everyday family life. The students and faculty advisers worked in the rural community of Goyena, ten miles outside of Leon, building a school room to accommodate local students who had been studying outside year round for lack of an indoor classroom.
In preparation for the trip, students met monthly over the spring semester to learn about cross-cultural communication, the socio-political environment of Nicaragua, the concept of development work, micro-financing policies and strategies to aid suppressed rural economies. They were also offered an array of background information on the city of Leon as well as Chichigalpa sugar cane workers suffering from an inordinately high index of Chronic Renal Disease. While on the trip, students interviewed some of these workers outside the cane plantation and learned first-hand of their struggles with their former employer for labor and health rights.
During the ten day trip, the students played baseball and kickball with their new found friends, moved mountains of volcanic dirt, cement and blocks to build a school house, arduously climbed and flew down the Cerro Negro Volcano, and visited the Mombacho Volcano Eco-Reserve seeing red-eyed frogs, sloths, howler monkeys and striking flora. They also boated through the remarkable Isla Juan Venado Mangrove Reserve, and toured the city of Leon with its plethora of architectural landmarks and museums, artisanal markets and cultural centers.
The students took a lot from their first hand experience of Nicaragua, from the accounts they recorded from Plantation workers suffering with chronic illness, to the similarities and differences in the day to day lives of their international student peers. They were touched by the genuine warmth of the families they stayed with and the gratitude of the students they aided.
Susan Bennitt, who organizes the trip each year, summarizes the student experience: "Charity, as such, is not the main objective of the trip, but rather to teach Hopkins students the value of development. They have been deeply impacted by their newly gained awareness of how enriching an experience it is to help others and the empowerment of deciding which path they think might be the most appropriate one to resolve the challenges that fascinated them most. Some students tend to be drawn to human rights’ issues, and others to environmental, educational or health ones, and virtually all of the delegates act upon their discoveries. The group is still working together on plans to further their opportunities to be of service and to raise awareness of the challenges Nicaragua faces."
Applications for next year's delegation taking place June 19th through 30th, will be available from Susan Bennitt this fall, and will be reviewed during the Thanksgiving break. For further information, kindly contact Susan at sbennitt@hopkins.edu
The New Haven/Leon Sister City Project (NH/LCP) was founded in 1984 by citizens of New Haven who want to work in solidarity with Nicaraguans struggling to build better lives for themselves. Today the NH/LCP has an office in the city of Leon, which is roughly the same size as New Haven, and supports educational programs in the rural community of Goyena, which lies 13 kilometers outside the city and consists of about 1700 families, and where schooling is available thanks to our on-going support, through the 10th grade. Most people of Goyena are not employed full-time, and do not have their own land to farm; they work for very low wages as seasonal laborers on the big sugar cane and peanut plantations that surround their community. Another major piece of the work of the NH/LSCP is to provide transformative educational immersion experiences for North Americans seeking to learn about Central America and explore ways to create more just relationships with its people. To find out more about the NH/LCP visit their website.
See more photos of the trip on the photo gallery page
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Students stayed with Nicaraguan families in a peaceful neighborhood in Leon, Nicaragua's second largest city. They had constant opportunities to speak and improve their Spanish and otherwise participate in everyday family life. The students and faculty advisers worked in the rural community of Goyena, ten miles outside of Leon, building a school room to accommodate local students who had been studying outside year round for lack of an indoor classroom.
In preparation for the trip, students met monthly over the spring semester to learn about cross-cultural communication, the socio-political environment of Nicaragua, the concept of development work, micro-financing policies and strategies to aid suppressed rural economies. They were also offered an array of background information on the city of Leon as well as Chichigalpa sugar cane workers suffering from an inordinately high index of Chronic Renal Disease. While on the trip, students interviewed some of these workers outside the cane plantation and learned first-hand of their struggles with their former employer for labor and health rights.
During the ten day trip, the students played baseball and kickball with their new found friends, moved mountains of volcanic dirt, cement and blocks to build a school house, arduously climbed and flew down the Cerro Negro Volcano, and visited the Mombacho Volcano Eco-Reserve seeing red-eyed frogs, sloths, howler monkeys and striking flora. They also boated through the remarkable Isla Juan Venado Mangrove Reserve, and toured the city of Leon with its plethora of architectural landmarks and museums, artisanal markets and cultural centers.
The students took a lot from their first hand experience of Nicaragua, from the accounts they recorded from Plantation workers suffering with chronic illness, to the similarities and differences in the day to day lives of their international student peers. They were touched by the genuine warmth of the families they stayed with and the gratitude of the students they aided.
Susan Bennitt, who organizes the trip each year, summarizes the student experience: "Charity, as such, is not the main objective of the trip, but rather to teach Hopkins students the value of development. They have been deeply impacted by their newly gained awareness of how enriching an experience it is to help others and the empowerment of deciding which path they think might be the most appropriate one to resolve the challenges that fascinated them most. Some students tend to be drawn to human rights’ issues, and others to environmental, educational or health ones, and virtually all of the delegates act upon their discoveries. The group is still working together on plans to further their opportunities to be of service and to raise awareness of the challenges Nicaragua faces."
Applications for next year's delegation taking place June 19th through 30th, will be available from Susan Bennitt this fall, and will be reviewed during the Thanksgiving break. For further information, kindly contact Susan at sbennitt@hopkins.edu
The New Haven/Leon Sister City Project (NH/LCP) was founded in 1984 by citizens of New Haven who want to work in solidarity with Nicaraguans struggling to build better lives for themselves. Today the NH/LCP has an office in the city of Leon, which is roughly the same size as New Haven, and supports educational programs in the rural community of Goyena, which lies 13 kilometers outside the city and consists of about 1700 families, and where schooling is available thanks to our on-going support, through the 10th grade. Most people of Goyena are not employed full-time, and do not have their own land to farm; they work for very low wages as seasonal laborers on the big sugar cane and peanut plantations that surround their community. Another major piece of the work of the NH/LSCP is to provide transformative educational immersion experiences for North Americans seeking to learn about Central America and explore ways to create more just relationships with its people. To find out more about the NH/LCP visit their website.
See more photos of the trip on the photo gallery page
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