First-Year Haiti Experience

I'm baaaaaaaack! My apologies for my absence. Once I returned from the Philippines, I was home for less than two weeks before taking a road trip up to Vermont to begin graduate school. Once I began working towards my Master's, it has been like a black hole where I was not focused on anything other than essays, papers, and presentations. I really only used my blog if I was able to tie it into my schoolwork, which is where you saw my posts from Senegal.  Since Senegal, I went to New York for my birthday, back to Vermont to finish the first year of on-campus coursework, then went down to Washington D.C. for a summer job, and then me and my car continued our road trip down to North Carolina which is where I am now!

I am in Raleigh, North Carolina working in the Office of International Programs at Saint Augustine's University (St. Aug). This small office handles study abroad student advising as well as international student advising. St. Aug has about 50 international students and a majority of them are from the Bahamas or other Caribbean island nations.

I am working here as a part of my graduate program. The first year is spent completing on-campus course work and the second year is spent in the field applying what your learned to practical experience. I am so grateful to be gaining valuable experience in study abroad at an HBCU.

One of the challenges we learn about in International Education is the lack of financial resources for underrepresented students in study abroad. I am now able see this first hand. I am creating a program for a group of 14 to travel to Haiti and explore the culture and understanding a different perspective of the African diaspora. These students are all freshmen selected by a professor because they show leadership skills, an interest in global worldview, and a commitment to community service. However, more than half of these students do not have the money to cover the entire cost of the program. These students have gone through a selection process, interview process and attended informational sessions about Haiti. I do not what money to be the one factor preventing them from participating in this amazing experience.

Therefore, I created a GoFundMe for the group. We are requesting $10,000 and while this may seem like a lot, this is only covering the cost of airfare for the students. This is a large expense that will take some of the stress off of students and their families. This program will take place March 2018 and until then we greatly would appreciate anything you can contribute. We want to ensure our scholars truly embody the motto of “Transform, Excel, Lead” and develop skills to function effectively in the rapidly changing and interconnected global environment.

For More Information, please visit our GoFundMe page for the First-Year Haiti Experience. At the very most, donate what your heart will allow. At the very least please share this information to those that may be able to make a contribution.

See you in my next post!

- The Natural Travelista