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Thursday, Jul. 16, 2009

Midstate college students spend summer break volunteering abroad

Cancun. Kauai. Puerto Vallarta. Punta Cana. Buenos Aires. Panama City.

Kara Teresi could have chosen just about anywhere to vacation this summer. Yet instead of flocking to a tourist mecca like many of her fellow Georgia College & State University students, Teresi spent a week in a small, low-income community overlooking the Cegro Negro Volcano in Nicaragua.

Teresi, a member of Georgia College’s soccer team, traveled with seven other Georgia College students in May to the Nicaraguan village El Ayudante, where they distributed soccer balls, cleats and jerseys to children who can’t afford their own.

“We spread the hope of soccer to kids in a very poor place of the world, and we got soccer experience doing it,” she said. “The gift of a ball seems so little, but it means so much to these kids, and it keeps them out of doing other things that could get them in trouble.”

Teresi is among the many Middle Georgia students who have picked up on the recent trend of taking on service-learning projects abroad. More than ever, college students are not only studying in foreign countries during the summer, but they also are helping to fix social problems.

At least 85 students from Mercer University and Georgia College have taken part in similar service projects this summer in eight countries around the globe.

One of the biggest components of these service-learning projects is that they enrich and educate the students who participate in them, said Craig McMahan, who heads up a service-learning initiative for students called Mercer on Mission.

“The goal is to relate the service projects abroad to coursework done back on campus,” he said.

Some of the countries that Mercer on Mission groups have volunteered in this summer include Brazil, Greece, Guatemala, Liberia, Kenya, Thailand and Vietnam.

Mercer senior Chris Kiker recently returned from a three-week trip to Thailand as part of the Mercer on Mission program.

While overseas, Kiker and his classmates taught English at a girls’ rehabilitative center, volunteered at an AIDS orphanage and helped perform health screenings for people who have never seen a doctor. “The trip was rewarding in the fact that I was able to help out, but it also taught me a lot about public health, which is what I want to do once I finish school,” he said.

A.C. Davis, a senior biomedical engineering major at Mercer, went on a similar service-oriented trip to Vietnam last month, where she helped distribute more than 40 prosthetic legs to Vietnam War amputees.

Some students have even decided to extend their overseas service initiatives past the typical boundaries of summer break.

After taking part in several Mercer on Mission trips as a student, John Buckner, a recent graduate, will start a job this fall as an English teacher in Brazil.

“It’s not only a job, but it’s a way for me to help foreign students become more globally connected by teaching them English, the international language,” Buckner said. “Hopefully, it’ll help them succeed.”

To contact writer Carl Lewis, call 744-4347.