Projects Abroad: An exciting new opportunity for Metropolitan State University students

-- Andrea Jackley

After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the EU began funding student /professor exchanges throughout the continent. Peter Slowe, a long time academic at Chichester University, sought this opportunity to introduce his students to a foreign country while doing meaningful work. Successful in obtaining a grant from Chichester's geography faculty and the Forestry Faculty of the Transylvania University in Romania, Peter took the first steps in creating what is now Projects Abroad.

Drawing on his own gap year experiences in India, Peter understood the importance of living and working overseas. As a professor of geography, he took the concept of using the world as one's classroom to heart and wanted his students to experience cultures that had been long forgotten or seen as off limits. It was in the summer of 1992 that he relocated with his students to Brasov, Romania to begin the first teaching programs.

Today, the scope of Projects Abroad is much bigger. While teaching conversational English remains at the core, where volunteers go and what they do has expanded dramatically. Whether it's caring for orphans in India, working with surgeons in Bolivia or broadcasting the evening news in Senegal, volunteers are personally taking part in an initiative to foster cultural understanding. Each volunteer who invests in a project is working towards a future that is filled with less fear of the unknown and a greater sense of humanity.

Mission of Projects Abroad

Living in a world that is more interdependent and closely connected each day, Projects Abroad recognizes the importance of learning about different cultures, gaining real-world experience and helping out across continents. It is from these ideas of global exchange and assistance that Projects Abroad was created. They are a premier international volunteering service in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany and the Netherlands sending over 3,500 volunteers a year to 20 countries on five continents. The organization is multifaceted in the sense that they not only give opportunities to those who would otherwise lack crucial development skills, but also endow volunteers with a feeling of global awareness and the need to give back.

Projects Abroad embraces a modern lifestyle shift—that more people are able to and do in fact travel to far off places for pleasure. This evolution in travel has solidified their purpose and primary goal: to create a norm for students in developed countries to spend at least one month living and working in the developing world. They believe this will help overcome the fear of otherness associated with unfamiliar cultures, which are so often perceived as threatening and frightening.

Projects Abroad is an NGO and therefore receives no funding or financial assistance from the government. They are members of the International Volunteer Programs Association (IVPA), an alliance of non-governmental organizations that are involved in international volunteer and internship exchanges and are partnered with the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), an organization founded by the Nobel family that recognizes academic excellence and encourages members to do good both at home and overseas.

The five most popular placements at Projects Abroad are:

Teaching

Teaching projects entail improving student's conversational English skills that are severely lacking without the presence of native English speakers. Volunteers work with young school children, high school students, local universities, adult learning centers and teacher training sessions. Volunteers also have the option to bring their creativity and interest into the classroom by holding art lessons or even coaching a soccer team. To date, volunteers have taught 67,000 school children in 281 schools.

Care

Volunteers work in a variety of facilities to care for young children and communities around the world. Care placements differ from one country to another, though generally they involve working in orphanages, supervising children whose parents are in prison, building houses, helping children with disabilities and farming on community gardens. These placements are offered in 19 of the destination countries. To date, volunteers have helped look after 20,000 children in 71 orphanages.

Conservation

In eight countries (Chile, Costa Rica, India, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Thailand), volunteers work with flora and fauna to preserve natural habitats. Conservation projects include, but are not limited to, rescuing sea turtles, diving and reef management, animal release programs and maintaining model farms. To date, volunteers have rescued 50,000 sea turtles in Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, and Sri Lanka.

Journalism

Volunteers work in print, radio and television journalism in 11 different countries. Opportunities range from scooping stories for entertainment magazines in China, working as a TV anchor in Mongolia, reading headline reports in Senegal and writing about important issues in Bolivia. Projects Abroad owns three magazines and works with 52 partner newspaper, magazines and radio stations around the world.

Medicine

Volunteers shadow local doctors and gain practical work experience they would otherwise not have access to in the US. By working on a placement in one of 13 developing nations, volunteers see advance stages of diseases that have been eradicated in the West. These placements give an in depth view of health care overseas and enable volunteers to work closely alongside medical professionals and patients. For more information about Projects Abroad, please visit their Web site: http://www.projects-abroad.org or contact them toll free at 1-888-839-3535.