Friends in Far Places

Over Spring Break, French language students will travel to Paris for a cultural and language immersion experience in which students will participate in a corporeal mime workshop at L’École Internationale de Mime Corporel Dramatique. The trip will also incorporate international conversations around the topics of migration and asylum, with comparisons between France and the United States. During students’ time abroad, they will meet with a government agency to explain French policies during the current refugee crisis. Post-trip, students will endeavor to continue the contacts with French students and to visit a New York organization that assists refugees coming to The United States.

 

The other Spring Break trip will be to South Africa, where Friends Seminary students will gain a better understanding of the complexities behind poverty and the benefits and costs of different routes to social justice. Besides historical and cultural stops such as Robben Island, the District Six Museum and Table Mountain National Park, students will have opportunities to travel into the townships and meet with residents. Through special ‘story-telling’ exercises, they’ll learn about how various artisans and entrepreneurs are working to establish their own livelihoods and plan for a better future. They’ll also meet with former political activists, engaging in free-flowing discussions around the abuse of power and the potential for forgiveness.  Visits with a variety of community-based organizations working to develop sustainable improvements, including: Unako Student Group, founded by undergraduates at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, Calabash Trust, a community-based NGO working to develop sustainable improvements in local schools, the Ikhala Trust, instrumental in popularizing asset-based development in South Africa, and, Ubuntu Education, a  non-profit organization that provides world-class health and educational support to the orphaned and vulnerable children of Port Elizabeth, will provide deeper understanding to the various approaches to international development.

 

In the summer of 2016, Friends Seminary students have an opportunity, through the school’s membership in the Global Education Benchmark Group’s consortium of independent schools, to travel to Colombia. Select students from the consortium will participate, during the academic school year, in online learning modules and threaded discussions, followed by a capstone immersion experience in which they examine ways to enact social change in a post-conflict environment. The cohort of students will travel throughout Colombia, engaging with local actors from public and private arenas and learning how people from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds are working together to build (and rebuild) their national identity and develop a new social contract. Solving inequality is one of the key challenges for the 21st century, and Colombia’s rapid return to stability provides the perfect context to explore this theme.