Amizade Global Service-Learning and Volunteer Programs

I spent my previous summer throughout sub-Saharan Africa in Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. Primarily my time in Africa was spent participating in two Amizade service-learning courses with a group of other American university students. One of the courses focused on development, global citizenship, etc and the other course entitled 'Life Stories and the Politics of Rights in Tanzania' used creative writing and ethnographic techniques to study women's rights issues affecting Karagwean women. Amizade connected my group with local Karagwean non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and planned cultural events such as cooking lessons, health clinic visits, and vocational school visits. We volunteered with an NGO called MAVUNO at their tree nursery that Amizade helped construct. The nursery gives local farmers seedlings and a place to safely store seeds from theft and the destructive rainy season. Amizade funding also ensure that a tin roof and water harvesting system could gather rain water during the rainy season into a massive on-sight well. Amizade also coordinated our service with another NGO, WOMEDA, which deals with women's rights issues in the Karagwe District ranging from child education fees to getting tin roofs for rainwater harvesting system. With WOMEDA translators, we traveled to the most rural parts of the district to interview women about their life experiences. These interviews became material for writing ethnographic pieces for WOMEDA's blog, which the NGO can use for future funding projects. After about five weeks in the Karagwe community, we left our guest house accommodations, and Amizade sent my group on safari through the Serengetti and Ngorogoro Crater National Parks in Tanzania. After two days of viewing lions, zebras, and cheetahs in their natural habitat, and sleeping in tents at Simba Base Camp, Amizade sent us to the most beautiful place in the world: Zanzibar Island. The natural beauty of Zanzibar's people and topography are indescribable and need to be experienced for yourself. After a relaxing stay in Zanzibar, the rest of the group departed for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania where they would fly back to the US. I stayed behind with one other Amizade participant, and we traveled to Pretoria, South Africa before departing for the US and back to university living. My experience with Amizade was extremely eye opening. For a brief moment of time I stepped into the foreign world of rural Karagwean residents, but I quickly realized that my experiences of shock and awe were merely experiences, and the brief experiences I was having in Karagwe was life for the many people I met and left behind. Amizade's service-learning courses are important because they make you step out of your comfort zone and experience the reality of our world and its problems. Amizade's service-learning courses are more than just about working with local NGO's on Karagwean women's rights or tree nurseries; Amizade is about building real, personal relationships that span across geography and time. Traveling to places that we, as university students, see as the other will help tear down misconceptions that we have about the world around us. Amizade gives university students, like myself, the opportunity to go out, get involved, question our world, and question ourselves through meaningful and thought provoking service and learning. I would strongly encourage any university/college student to check out what Amizade has to offer!

I went to Santarem in 2000 with a Davidson College service trip, and Ive been going back to Santarem ever since. Because of my exposure to Brazilian culture and the service learning project I participated in, I decided to focus on issues of development and environmental conservation during graduate school. I currently return to the greater Santarem region yearly, and I am a professor of anthropology at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island. In January 2011, Ill be leading a group of 17 RWU students on an Amizade volunteer experience: the group will be studying issues related to environmental sustainability in the tropics, and will be working on a stream revitalization project.

My trip to Tanzania was my first time out of the United States, and it was an eye opening experience to say the least. My Amizade trip made me realize just how much there is to learn about the world. Before going to Tanzania, I equated learning with sitting in a classroom. I now realize that the best way to learn is not from words in a text book, but from the words of others. There is so much to learn in the stories that friends or even strangers take the time to tell. The value of the real life education that I acquired in Tanzania by simply learning from others can never be quantified. The greatest aspect of my Amizade program was how I was integrated into the Tanzanian community, rather than just living as an American tourist in Tanzania. This program is truly different from other study abroad programs because it focuses on the development of a global citizen, rather than just a completion of college credits. My Amizade professors facilitated me in opening my mind and allowing for a global and internal education that was far past the scope of my major.

My Amizade experience was simultaneously deeply humbling and greatly inspiring, in that I was able to recognize both my own limits and misconceptions as well as ways to start making a conscious change in myself for the better. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, and witnessing that kind of poverty challenged me to look at my own life and try to identify ways in which to better myself and the way I live within the context of our decidedly globalized world; which I believe is something we could all greatly benefit from. Alanna is currently majoring in political science and international studies in West Virgina University.

My trip to Jamaica was my first time out of the United States. It was such a humbling experience to see first hand the struggles of a developing country. Staying inland with a Jamaican family allowed me to actually be a part of the exciting and culturally rich lifestyle of the island, something tourists can never fully experience while staying at one of the island's beach resorts. After the trip I gained a new appreciation for my education, daily life activities and for the support system I have here in the US. The interactive study of the class helped me directly define the term of global citizenship that I would have never learned in a regular university classroom. The trip was one of the most deeply influential experiences I had during my college years and helped me define the career path I would like to follow in my future. Becky is currently a senior at West Virginia University and studying Public Relations and Spanish.

Rainwater harvesting systems change lives. As an Amizade Global Service-Learning student-volunteer in the Karagwe District of Tanzania in the summer of 2009 I saw firsthand the powerful and utterly life-changing effects that these systems have on those that use them. These tanks are more than pieces of plastic; they raise people's quality of life by ensuring safety and relieving a grueling workload. No longer required to spend hours each day fetching water just to survive, a child may finally be able to attend school, or a woman may be able to pursue professional training.

The first time I left the United States was with Amizade in the summer of 2007 on a service-learning program to Santarem, Brazil. The month I spent learning about international development and Brazilian culture while working with locals on the construction of a community center changed my outlook on life forever. My eyes were opened to a world I hadn't been previously exposed to and I was challenged to better understand and appreciate the opportunities I have been given. That initial program allowed me to re-evaluate my perspective on life and develop career goals related to community development in Latin America. As a result, I studied abroad twice more with Amizade in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia in order to further my understanding of the world around me. These two experiences confirmed the desires in me to better understand myself as a global citizen. In the end, Amizade has changed my life and allowed me to have a more complete understanding of both who I am and what I want to do in the future.