The Alternative Spring break offers students an opportunity to work with a non-governmental organization (NGO) in El Salvador over reading week, and travel with a purpose. This program is entering its third year, and I have been lucky enough to travel with the group twice, first as a participant, and again as a student mentor. Projects are community initiated and facilitated by the partnership between the NGO, the UofM, and the sustainability of the project is taken into consideration. Working side-by-side, community members determine the most efficient and effective way to utilize the natural environment and skills of everyone working on the project. Upon arrival, students pull on their work boots, throw on some gloves and pick up a shovel.
However the focus of this program is on sharing information, experiences, and compassion; about learning from each other, and from yourself; about getting an introduction to development, to non-governmental organizations, and a new culture, NOT just on creating something tangible that will remain for decades (although that is one component).
Being able to participate in this program in two very different capacities, and return to the community a year after the UofM’s initial visit has been a tremendous opportunity that I am very lucky to have been able to experience. An often understated part of this program is the individual impact participation can have. To the individuals who have participated, the Facebook profile picture isn’t of a foreigner and a local but rather of two new friends. The school supplies collected by elementary school students in Canada who have never met their Southern recipients, doesn’t show the attempt of two people from two very different places accepting each other for who they are with empathy and compassion.
Upon return students share photos and stories with their friends and family exposing them to a reality they might be unaware of and in turn inspiring them to get involved (in some capacity or another). However, pictures [see picture above] don’t show how a two-week experience can lead to a lifetime of engagement and participation. I look back over the emails, the Facebook messages, and think back to all the long distance phone calls I have received from my new El Salvadorian friends over the last two years, and am still baffled that my brief time in El Salvador has transpired into friendships that will last a lot longer than my time spent in country.
The Alternative Spring Break program has a five year plan that began last year with the initial preparation of a two and a half acre plot of land alongside members of an agrarian cooperative with future plans to develop an education centre, further organic development as well as marketing strategies which will hopefully be accomplished through the joint collaboration of the University of Manitoba and the Community Based Organization (CBO) and NGO based in El Salvador.
Experiences that engage and inspire while creating interest are a fundamental way to generate and spread awareness, and are crucial to encourage global citizenship. When people are inspired they do great things and it’s important to remain ambitious. To continue to change how much you’re willing to push the envelope and to always challenge the status quo—as cliché as that is, and to demand more from yourself, and from those around you.
-Delaney C.
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