By Lori Tarbett
While many students will be basking in the sun on the beaches of warmer climates, Nana O. Yeboah will be one of the eight FASS students who will be donating their spring break time to help others in Mexico.
Known as Alternative Spring Break (ASB), the program is a Community Service Learning initiative aimed at challenging students to make connections between the service they provide to the community and the knowledge and skills they acquire in the classroom. This year, 25 students, one faculty member, two staff members and two student leaders will travel to Cuernavaca, Mexico during Reading Week where they will live and work with the Cuernavaca Centre for Intercultural Dialogue on Development.
Participants will partake in lectures, discussions, community visits and service in the community. While the focus is on Mexico, students are encouraged to consider these issues in relation to their own communities.
Yeboah, the twenty-four-year-old Brampton native of Ghanaian descent, joined ASB because she wanted to do something more productive with her time. “I am hoping to gain a renewed sense of community service and the different aspects it includes,” says Yeboah. “I am also hoping to make connections between the gender, racial and social inequalities in Canada to the inequalities abroad.”
While it is ultimately up to each student to pay for their trip, they are encouraged to raise money any way they can – from shoveling snow to selling chocolates explains Yeboah. Faculty and staff can also help by donating school supplies which will be brought to Cuernavaca and distributed to schools in need. Those interested can contact the First Year Experience Office.
“The world is in turmoil and as I grow in age, I see with my own two eyes that there is truth to this statement: I have always felt that it is my obligation to help out more than just within my immediate community,” says, Yeboah, an English major with a minor in women’s studies. “I think Alternative Spring Break will help me understand the severity of the problems our world faces today.”