STUDENTS SHOULDER-TO-SHOULDER
THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
SHOULDER-TO
The International School of Global Citizenship celebrates its seventh year with experiential learning opportunities in eight sites through its Shoulderto-Shoulder program. As a non-profit school, operating summer programs on four continents, we are committed to our educational mission in every experience we offer: to inspire high school students to engage in global citizenship through education, collaboration, and post-travel advocacy. Our instructors lead small groups of students through compelling online activities centered on our Five Lens Curriculum before taking them into the field for hands-on education from our partner non-profits. These remarkable organizations make a tangible and sustainable impact on our world and on our students. After returning home, students have the opportunity to advocate for these organizations through public presentations. We encourage you to learn more about our offerings, philosophy, and method on our website at www.shouldertoshoulder.com.
O-SHOULDER
EDUCATE
“I realized that being a global citizen is fully immersing yourself in the culture, learning about their lifestyle, and also realizing that the point of the project is not to totally change their way of life, but to spend quality time with them.�
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
BOLIVIA The SStS Bolivia course begins in the highest capital on earth, La Paz, where students will get a taste of the ancient Ayamara culture created amidst 21,000-foot peaks. The time there is short, as the bulk of the service work will be in the most biologically diverse spot on the planet, the Bolivian Amazon. In this region, the rivers are the highways, and the indigenous communities lay scattered along its banks. The communities of the Rio Beni live a remote existence, with subsistence living conditions and minimal access to clean water. These local people (primarily Chimane, Mosetene, Tacana and Quechua Indians) historically have had little access to primary health care services. Our partner non-profit, the Rio Beni Health Foundation, provides these essential medical services to the people of the Rio Beni. The SStS project primarily focuses on supporting mobile clinics, participating in local trainings, and building filters for a clean water initiative. After building filters for schools and homes that have no access to clean water, SStS students will travel up-river to live with the communities they have come to support. The filters they will install literally save lives, minimizing the disturbingly high infant mortality rate in these communities. While there, SStS students will hear stories of life in the Amazon around campfires and enjoy soccer with the local kids. They will also experience a jungle that provides life to more species than any other place on earth and explore why it is rapidly disappearing. After seeing firsthand the struggles that the Amazonian people face and the enjoyment that they derive from their simple lives, the course will culminate in a trip to Isla del Sol, an island in Lake Titicaca. While on this island, which is central in the Incan myth of creation, students will have the opportunity to reflect upon their course in global citizenship in the midst of a strikingly beautiful Andean setting.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to July 1
ADVOCATE
“Our time on the island was refreshingly simple and peaceful; however, it could be uncomfortable at times. For me, being put out of my comfort zone allowed me to learn and grow as a ‘global citizen.’ I think that is what makes these SStS courses so unique and important.”
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
CAMBODIA The SStS Cambodia course begins in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Upon arrival, the group will spend two days learning about the rich history of the Cambodian people, including the tragic legacy of the Khmer Rouge. The service work will then begin with the Westline Education Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating impoverished urban children. After this experience, students will get their first exposure to the rural lifestyle of many Cambodians as they travel by minibus to the town of Kratie in order to connect with our other non-profit partner, the Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT). After spending a day exploring Kratie and learning more about the work and mission of CRDT, the group will travel to the island village of Koh Preah, where they will live with villagers in traditional homes for over a week. While in Koh Preah, the group will experience firsthand how CRDT supports local projects aimed at improving the living standards of poor rural communities with a particular focus on sustainable environmental practices. SStS students will spend a majority of their time in Koh Preah engaged in a project centered on improving the facilities at a local school. Additionally, they will be immersed in the daily routines of this rural village. Evenings will be spent listening to stories told by village elders and participating in cultural presentations and ceremonies. In order to get a feel for the adjacent countryside, the group will travel by boat to swim in the storied Mekong River and, ideally, catch a glimpse of endangered fresh water dolphins. Upon completion of the project, the group will take the scenic route down the Mekong to Kratie. From there, they will travel to Siem Reap in order to spend a few days reflecting on what they have learned about global citizenship and touring Angkor Wat, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is the largest Hindu temple in the world.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to July 5
COLLABORATE
“Kenya did not change my life; it started to form it.�
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
KENYA The SStS Kenya course is centered primarily in Meru, a rapidly expanding town in the foothills of 17,000-foot Mount Kenya. After spending two days being introduced to Kenya by visiting an elephant orphanage, a giraffe preserve, and the National Museum in Nairobi, the group will travel to Meru to begin their work with our non-profit partner, International Peace Initiatives (IPI). The project work primarily focuses on supporting IPI’s efforts to build and sustain several Amani Community Homes. These homes allow economic and AIDS orphans to remain close to their extended families while also providing them with a safe and healthy home environment. In addition to attending local schools, the children living in the Amani Homes support themselves by working on adjacent organic farms and tending to goats, rabbits, and chickens. In the process, they help to take care of themselves and learn invaluable vocational skills that will be essential to their success as Kenyan adults. While in Kenya, the SStS group will live at the orphanage in order to build personal relationships with the children living there. In addition to teaching and playing with the children, participants will work on projects such as expanding the existing farm and building eco-cottages that provide sustainable revenue streams for IPI. Throughout the project phase, students will also have the opportunity to spend an evening around a campfire with local residents and elders, to spend a night with a family in a rural village, and to visit schools and homes with IPI’s community liaisons. Finally, the course concludes with a safari in the world-renowned Samburu game park, where students are likely to see a range of animals (giraffes, elephants, zebras, lions, and antelope) as they finish their course in global citizenship.
COURSE DATES: June 17 to July 4
PARTNER
“This experience has taught me more than I could ever imagine about the world, myself, and what can happen when one person perseveres.�
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
NEPAL The SStS Nepal course begins in Nepal’s capital city, Kathmandu, where staff from SStS’s non-profit partner, The Small World (TSW), will greet the group. The next two days will be spent acclimating and visiting various UNESCO World Heritage sites, including the famed Monkey Temple. After this introduction to Nepali culture, the group will travel to Kapan, a village on the outskirts of Katmandu, and settle into the project site. For over ten days, they will work on the construction of the Himalayan Hope Home. This home is designed to create a loving family environment to support the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of 40 orphaned girls. Thirty of the girls in the hostel will be deserving but extremely poor children from the Katmandu area while 10 others will move from another of TSW’s girls hostels in the remote Solukhumbu region in order to earn a bachelor’s degree at a university in Katmandu. Because only 45% of Nepali women are literate, a primary focus of TSW’s work is girls’ access to education as a means to empower the next generation of female Nepali leaders. During their time in Kapan, the group will work shoulder-to-shoulder with TSW staff and skilled local artisans from the village. Throughout the project phase, students, in pairs, will live with local families in order to have an authentic immersion experience in the daily routines of a Nepali family. Upon completing the project, the group will then drive northeast of Katmandu to begin a five-day Himalayan trek in the remote Helambu valley. Students will hike for nearly 50 miles through isolated villages surrounded by misty rhododendron forests and dramatic snow covered peaks rising to over 25,000 feet. At the end of this trek, the course will close in Katmandu with a special “thank you” ceremony that highlights the culture, compassion, and gratitude of our Nepali hosts and the values of global citizenship.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to July 7
EXPERIENCE
“I’ve realized that I can truly have an impact on this world.”
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
NEW ORLEANS The SStS New Orleans course was born in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. After the devastation and floods that the storm brought to New Orleans, volunteers from all over the United States rushed to aid in the recovery of the Crescent City. Before governmental funds were accessible, several grassroots organizations sprang to life putting volunteers into action and assisting homeowners with the rebuilding process. SStS students will experience the community’s grassroots efforts to rebuild by working with one of these organizations, Common Ground Relief, which empowers residents to facilitate their own recovery by supporting projects ranging from home construction and rehabilitation to wetlands restoration and community gardening. The end goal of all of their programs is to restore viable neighborhoods and improve the overall quality of life for residents. While in New Orleans, the SStS group will work both in areas of the city that have yet to fully recover and on ecological projects in the wetlands intended to lessen the potential impact of future hurricanes. Students will have a chance to experience the Lower 9th Ward, where much of Katrina’s devastation is still clearly visible today. Additionally, throughout the course, participants will explore the city of New Orleans. After hearing the music that fills this city, they will learn about the history of jazz while visiting the French Quarter. Another highlight is a swamp tour that will provide the students with a firsthand perspective on life in rural Louisiana and its unique traditions. Time will also be spent with local residents, hearing their powerful accounts of how Katrina directly affected their lives. Throughout the program, students will experience the unique food, music, and culture of New Orleans, help the community to rebuild and revitalize, and learn invaluable lessons about global citizenship.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to June 22
ENGAGE
“I learned what it meant to be a global citizen a person who is patient, humble, and persistent, who treats every person with the same amount of dignity and respect; a person who not only takes the initiative to fix problems of social injustice but also inspires others to help.�
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
PERU The SStS Peru course begins in Cusco, a beautiful Andean city renowned for its rich archeological history from both the Incan and Spanish Empires. After spending a day acclimating and visiting several sacred sites, the group will connect with our nonprofit partner, Peruvian Hearts. This organization works to enhance the lives of orphans and other children living in poverty through improved nutrition, education, and health care. Because studies have shown that females earn 10% more for every year of secondary education and invest up to 90% of their earnings in their families, Peruvian Hearts’ priority is to provide higher education and vocational skills to girls. The SStS group’s primary project will focus on construction aimed at improving the facilities at the Hogar Mercedes orphanage. Located in a small village outside of Cusco, the orphanage provides a home and an education to 29 girls from nearby Andean communities. During the project phase of the program, SStS participants will live and work at the Hogar in order to build lasting relationships with the girls living there. In addition to the time spent on construction, students will play with and tutor these kids. A couple days will also be dedicated to working at Peruvian Hearts’ nutritional programs that provide food and vitamins to hundreds of kids at small village schools. Students at these schools walk up to three hours a day for an education, and since this meal is the only one some receive each day, these programs help to increase school attendance as well as the children’s long-term prospects. After over a week engaged in these projects, the program culminates with a three-day trek on the fabled Inca Trail, part of an ancient system of highways built at the height of the Incan Empire. While camping in stunning cloud forests and alpine tundra over 13,000 feet on their trek to Machu Picchu, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, students will have the opportunity to consider what they have learned about global citizenship.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to July 4
GLOBAL
“I went there in hopes of changing someone else’s life, but along the way my life was changed.”
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
PINE RIDGE, SOUTH DAKOTA The SStS Pine Ridge course occurs on the Lakota Native American Reservation, which is home to 26,000 members of the Lakota Nation. Upon their arrival in Rapid City, South Dakota, students will be greeted by our non-profit partner, the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation. For a variety of historical, geographic, political, and economic reasons, the Pine Ridge Reservation is the second poorest county in the United States. In the midst of these challenging circumstances, the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation is working to reclaim 1800 acres of their ancestral lands in order to restore the buffalo herds that once roamed freely on the Great Plains. It is their vision that reclaiming this land and reintroducing the buffalo will connect the Lakota people with their ancestral home for both economic and cultural reasons. In addition to this buffalo project, the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation also hosts camps, guided by tribal elders, for Lakota children that are intended to revive vibrant traditional beliefs and ways of living. While in Pine Ridge, the group will work shoulder-to-shoulder with the leaders of the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation as well as a crew of local Lakota workers. The primary focus of their project will be building fences for a new buffalo pasture. Throughout the project phase, participants will camp in a ponderosa forest, near where the Knife Chief holds their annual Sun Dances. In order to enhance their understanding of the ancient and modern history of the Lakota people, time will also be spent helping to prepare for the ceremonies that will be held at an upcoming Lakota boys camp hosted by the Knife Chief group. The course will then culminate with students participating in a traditional Lakota blessing ceremony. Over the course of their time in Pine Ridge, students will learn about how thoughtful and committed grassroots leaders are embracing traditional Lakota beliefs as a means to address modern challenges.
COURSE DATES: June 30 to July 7
CITIZENSHIP
“One of the things that I have learned is that kindness and generosity translates in ways that words do not. We were able to make meaningful relationships with people without speaking in the same language.�
Service Curriculum Trekking Living Conditions On the Move Homestay Remoteness
TIBET The SStS Tibet course begins in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu. This rapidly expanding industrial hub not only has over 14 million residents, but it also has over 2000 years of history. Guided by our hosts, the group will spend the first days visiting cultural sites, including a panda-breeding center, before driving to the city of Kangding on the Tibetan plateau. At this point, the group will begin to work directly with SStS’s non-profit partner, the Tibetan Village Project (TVP). TVP is an organization dedicated to promoting economic development while preserving the rich cultural heritage of Tibet through projects that are locally supported and sustained. After arriving in Kangding, the TVP staff will introduce the group to their project in the village of Tagong. The primary focus of the project work will be improving the facilities at the Tagong Thangka Center, a school and home for 40 young orphans and their teachers. This center aims to provide these students with an education and the skills necessary to produce traditional Buddhist Thangka paintings, which can be sold to provide funding for the Center. While in Tagong, the students will live with local families. This will provide participants with the opportunity to be fully immersed in the lives of traditional Tibetan villagers. In addition to directly experiencing the daily rhythms of this ancient culture, the group will also spend time hiking in the magnificent Tibetan landscape and visiting local monasteries to learn more about Buddhist traditions. Significant time will also be spent developing relationships with the kids and staff at the Tagong Thangka Center. In many ways, the contrasts that the students will experience between life on the Tibetan plateau and in the bustling industrial city of Chengdu will help them to better understand the meaning of citizenship and the divergent forces at work in the rapidly changing nation of China.
COURSE DATES: June 16 to July 3
*This course occurs in western Sichuan Province, not in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, which has been the center of recent unrest. Tagong is over 1000 miles from Lhasa.
COURSE ELEMENTS
Service (time spent working)
On the Move (time spent traveling)
At least half the days at each course location are spent engaged in meaningful service work, shoulder-to-shoulder with our non-profit partners.
Depending on where our partner non-profit is based, traveling significant distances from arrival cities to project sites is often necessary. As a result, the amount of time spent transitioning between sites varies in each program.
Curriculum Participants are required to complete SStS’s Five Lenses Curriculum. This includes a series of online lessons (30 minutes per week) prior to traveling, peer-led discussions while in the field, and advocacy presentations upon returning home.
Trekking (time spent in outdoor pursuits) Work projects at all sites require strenuous manual labor, so being physically fit is important. Some courses have additional outdoor experiences (e.g. hikes) with varying degrees of physical intensity.
Living Conditions (level of ruggedness) SStS students are guests and volunteers, not tourists, with local non-profits. Consequently, lodging and food for participants deliberately mirror those of local residents. In some program sites, living conditions are more rustic than in others.
Homestay (length) Homestays (which typically occur in groups of 2 or 3) can be invaluable in allowing students to directly experience the culture and rhythms of life in each course site. Depending on the community where the project is based, homestays vary in length.
Remoteness (time spent in rural settings) The location of projects can change each year because SStS supports the work that is the current priority of our non-profit partners. Therefore, projects can occur in rural areas, cities, or a combination of both.
high moderate low
The safety of our students is the highest priority for Students Shoulder-to-Shoulder. Although objective risks exist in immersion programs, SStS has a variety of tested policies for managing and mitigating any challenges that arise. Central to our risk management strategies are the relationships that exist with our non-profit partners, which are well-respected organizations with deep-roots in the local communities. Additionally, our course instructors are experienced and well-traveled professional educators. If we determine that an unacceptable level of risk exists, we alter itineraries without hesitation.
EDUCATING THE NEXT GENERATION OF GLOBAL CITIZENS
Apply online at www.shouldertoshoulder.com