Description

Join a UW Oshkosh service-learning course in Managua, Nicaragua, where you will:

Live, Work, and Play with Nicaraguans.
* Volunteer at the Women in Action Center, a community development project offering education, health, art, and food programs in a low-income neighborhood of Nicaragua's capital, Managua.
* Read and Write travel narratives and literary journalism about cross-cultural experiences in Central America.
* Meet and Interview community leaders who will detail the economic, political, and ecological challenges of everyday life in Nicaragua.
* Visit the Masaya Volcano National Park, an artisans' market, a volcanic lake, a coffee farm, the colonial city of Grenada, a Pacific beach, and more!

Our Host: Compas de Nicaragua (Friends of Nicaragua) is a non-profit organization that seeks to improve lives through sustainable community development and cultural exchange between the United States and Nicaragua. Compas's main project, Women in Action, is a group of 40 women who organize health, education, and income-generating projects in the poorest settlement of La Primavera (Springtime), a low-income Managua neighborhood on the shore of Lake Managua. These women are mostly single mothers living in tin shacks with dirt floors who meet regularly at the Women in Action Center, which includes a classroom, library, and store that sells donated clothes.

Service work projects will depend largely on the community's needs at the time of your visit, but typically include the following: chicken coop building; gardening; light construction; and enrichment activities with women and children, including English and Spanish classes, arts and crafts, soy food preparation, and gourd art workshops.

Highlights

Choose one:

English 302 3 units (crs.)
Advanced Composition: Writing About the Humanities (EN)
Prerequisite: 60 units (crs.) including any Writing-Based Inquiry Seminar (WBIS 188), or English 101 or English 110.

English 350 3-4 units (crs.)
Literary Study Tour
Prerequisite: none

English 405 3 units (crs.)
Creative Writing
Prerequisite: A 300-level creative writing course or consent of instructor. 405/605

Women's Studies 366 1-3 units (crs.)
Service Learning Field Study (SS)
Prerequisites: Instructor permission and 6 hours of Women's Studies course credit.

Optional Course

International Studies 333 1 unit (cr.)
Study Tour
Prerequisites: none; syllabus

If you request enrollment in this course on the study abroad application, you will be automatically enrolled and will not be contacted about the coursework involved. Assignments for this course must be done independently. Contact the Office of International Education with questions.

Degree Level

Bachelors Degree (Undergraduate)

Subject Areas

• Creative Writing
• English
• English Literature
• Women's Studies

Cost in US$:

2,465 USD Total Estimated Expenses

Program Fees Include:

The more who sign up for this program, the lower the cost per participant will be. You can help lower your cost to study abroad by recruiting friends and classmates to join you in this experience!

Indicates the expense will appear on your UW Oshkosh student account.

Expenses in U.S. Dollars
100 USD Application Fee (200 USD for out-of-state applicants)
100 USD Passport & Pictures
445 USD Airfare (estimate)
varies: Immunizations
645 USD Total Pre-travel Expense Estimate (plus immunizations)

Expenses in Foreign Currency (NIO = Nicaragua Cordobas)
NIO 4,000 Personal Spending Money
NIO 4,000 Total Expense Estimate while Abroad

2,465 USD Total Estimated Expenses

Program fees cover course-related expenses (no tuition is assessed); transportation between UW Oshkosh and the U.S. airport by school bus; Nicaraguan tourist card; accommodation and three meals per day at the Compas Visitor Center and with host families; local transportation costs and tours/visits listed on the finalized itinerary; pre-travel orientation; and international health insurance. The program itinerary may be tentative and will not be finalized until approximately two weeks before departure.

Program fees do not cover items not specifically mentioned above such as trip cancellation and baggage insurance; passports; immunizations; airfare; local transportation personal costs; and all expenses of a purely personal nature. Estimates for some of these expenses have been included above.

Experience Required

no

This Program is open to

Worldwide Participants.

Typically Participants Work

in Groups