Good Work or Good Times? Discussion on Expectations

It has been difficult for me to articulate my expectations going back to my first experience(s) in El Salvador (2008, 2009) because of the evolution I have undergone from a 19 year-old relatively ‘fresh’ student to the student I am now after having been able to experience some amazing opportunities leading up to my most recent 5-month Students for Development Internship in Honduras, and as I think about my expectations for my upcoming internship with RDRS in Bangladesh this May.

When, in 2008, I traveled to El Salvador with a group of students from the University my biggest expectation was simply that I wanted to ‘help’ people. I wanted to put some of the theories I had been studying in textbooks and tossing around in my classes into action, and I wanted to see a different part of the world. I’m not sure that before I left I quite realized how deeply I would be affected, and how this first introductory experience would have a very dramatic impact on the rest of my University education (and likely the rest of my life).

I had the opportunity to return to El Salvador in 2009. This time as a leader of a new group of students to the same communities I had visited the year before and instead of just wanting to help people, I wanted more. I wanted to start figuring out if the project in question was as efficient and effective as it could/should be, and I started to ask (a lot) of questions...about the project, about the Universities role in El Salvador, and about development in general. I expected to be able to make changes, to shape the program to be able to push the program to be as effective as possible and work with the communities involved the most efficiently.

In September 2010, I was accepted for a 5-month internship and set off for Honduras. Solo this time to work for five months with a non-governmental organization. This time I wanted to work for a longer period of time with an organization and be able to start utilizing some of the skills I had developed over the years. I expected to be able to share some of my techniques, skills, and ideas, while learning a whole lot at the same time, and I expected a practical application of everything I had studied and experienced over the last four years. At this point, my expectations were less about where I was going (I could handle the bugs, the violence, the food, the heat, the people, the changes) and more about taking more than a two-week vacation that again raised a lot of questions and left me without answers.

As I think about my expectations for this May, when I will be facilitating a 5-week program for four undergraduate students in Bangladesh with an NGO called RDRS, I hope that I will be able to share some of my experiences, some of my questions and help the students go ‘deeper’ and see beyond the resilience, kindness and smiling faces. To explore their own philosophies of development, and to realize that there is more to these experiences than returning to Canada feeling grateful for all that we have been given. That continuing the dialogue, that sharing stories, pictures, and enthusiasm helps makes us all global citizens and that just because we are countries apart doesn’t mean that the connection (between people, between countries) needs to and should end.

Alternative Spring Break: El Salvador My Two Cents

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.