Next week, more than 100 AU students will participate in six separate trips to locations around the globe including Brazil, Jamaica, Ecuador, Greece, the Cherokee Nation and Vietnam to help others and explore their cultures.
This is all part of Alternative Spring Break, which is in its eighth year at AU.
"Each trip has an exclusive purpose that is intended by the Alternative Break Club to promote AU's initiative, 'ideas in action, action into service,'" said Michael Haack, president of the Alternative Spring Break Club and a senior in the School of International Service.
Haack, a participant in a 2003 Alternative Spring Break trip to Burma, recounts the political struggles of the Burmese citizens during his trip.
"Taking what I learned upon returning to America, I was able to act in solidarity with oppressed Burmese people," Haack said.
The Alternative Break trips this year will delve into social and cultural issues in other countries. One expedition will focus on the movement of landless Brazilians seeking agricultural land. Students will work with these citizens, who under new Brazilian law will physically occupy corporate lands that they don't feel are being used productively, Haack said.
During the Jamaican trip, students will experience the effects of World Bank Structural Adjustment Programs on the nation's economy. The Ecuador trip will focus on the struggles and concerns of indigenous populations, and in Greece, students will study civil rights issues related to increasing migrations of people arriving from northern Africa.
The trip to the Cherokee Nation in western North Carolina is primarily service-oriented, Haack said. The trip will expose students to the poverty that exists within American Indian reservations.
The primary goal of the Vietnam trip will be to cultivate intercultural exchange, exposure and communication between participants and Vietnamese citizens, according to Haack.
"I've actually thought of Vietnam for a while now, and with my International Development and Political Science majors, it made perfect sense," said Joshua White, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs.
A participant in the 2004 spring break trip to Cuba, White states that "the major understanding that I took away from traveling to Cuba is that no one side of any international debate is totally true."
"Rather than a sort of charity, I see [Alternative Spring Break] as an opportunity for learning about people and their struggles, and then taking that experience and being able to act in solidarity with them further on," Haack said.
Break Away, a nonprofit organization that supports the development of alternative break trips, estimated that the national amount of college students participating in alternative spring trips this year is approximately 38,000. This figure increased by 3,000 since last year.
"We're expecting several more to go this year and have seen an increased interest going on," said Jake Brewer, executive director of Break Away. "This is especially due in part to the disaster relief efforts going on around the globe during this time."
Break Away's mission statement echoes Haack's belief in alternative break trips as a form of education to inspire solidarity.
"Break Away connects college students with community members to learn about social problems and ultimately to encourage social change and active citizenship," said last year's Executive Director Dan McCabe in a March 2004 press release.
AU is listed as an associate member in the Break Away program.
The club is now in its eighth year of promoting trips during the winter, spring, and summer breaks. This summer, there will be a month-long trip to Zambia that will examine the AIDS epidemic.
