Beyond ASB: Trips Cross DC, Borders
Beyond ASB: Trips Cross DC, Borders
While the Alternative Spring Break trips through the Center for Social Justice attract hundreds of students, a handful of Hoyas will traverse the globe with other programs next week.
Through an Outdoor Education trip to Nicaragua, 14 students and two guides will help build irrigation canals in local schoolyards as well as climb volcanoes, surf and horseback ride.
According to Lindsey Doyle (SFS '13), who will serve as a guide on the trip, the program is a chance for many students explore a new culture and ecosystem.
"One of the things that Outdoor Education offers to students is the high adventure, Outdoor [Education] aspect," she said. "It gives them exposure to a place they might not otherwise get to see."
Twelve students on this year's trip to Rwanda will witness the rebuilding of a post-conflict country first-hand. The program, organized by the African Studies Program and the International Development Certificate, was started by professors Maria Louise Wagner and Scott Taylor last year.
"It's an opportunity to examine development broadly conceived," Taylor, who will lead the trip this year, said. "Rwanda is unique in terms of the progress that it has made in the 18 years since the genocide."
According to Alex Moran (SFS '13) who went on the trip last year, Rwanda was a perfect case study for economic development.
"It's really stable, especially considering what countries surround it. I think more professors should take students on trips to do research," she said.
Moran added that the trip provided an experience unavailable in the District.
"It was very authentic the whole time we were there," she said, describing a ride on a rickety ferry during which she was sandwiched between two women holding chickens. "You've just never seen anything like it before."
For students who want to stick a little closer to home, Teach for America and Deloitte offer a spring break trip to Memphis. In the four-day program, four Georgetown students will work with school children in low-income areas to address education inequity.
The program also serves as a recruitment tool for Deloitte. According to the company, it has hired 127 trip participants since 2008.
Four students won't leave campus at all for break, and instead will join 46 students from other universities on the Urban Plunge spring break trip sponsored by InterVarsity. The program, which will explore Southeast D.C., focuses on urban issues from a faith-based perspective.
"We're trying to give students an integrated world view of doing social justice from a Bible-based perspective," Kate Perkins, an InterVarsity staff member and trip coordinator, said.
According to Perkins, the trip includes community service, speakers and travel in the District. One of the issues the program will discuss this year is racial division within the church.
For Joanna Foote (SFS '13), a past participant, Urban Plunge was an eye-opening experience.
"I went on the trip my freshman year, and it was a great opportunity to both learn more about D.C. and see how my Christian faith relates to urban issues," she wrote in an email.
