Write on Your Blog When You're Stuck on a Plane

I hate to fly. Except for the shorter travel time, there is nothing about the process that I enjoy. They don’t even give out peanuts anymore. I am writing this post 30,000 feet in the air, after going to bed at 1:00 am and waking up a 3:00 am to get to the airport, trying not to freak out about the bumpy air we are currently experiencing. A stupid movie is playing on the TVs, and I’m watching first class passengers get served hot towels and champagne. While I realize that millions of people can only dream of ever having the opportunity to fly on an airplane, so I should really just be grateful to have the opportunity, I must admit that I think this sucks. That aside, I am trying to be a more positive thinker, so I will say that being trapped in this germ tube of an aircraft does provide me with the perfect opportunity to post on my poor little neglected blog. I haven’t written in a while ironically because there has been too much to write about, and therefore too little time. So, it’s good to be stuck for a few hours in order to reflect upon the last couple months of work and share that with you all.

First of all, I’m on this plane because I just visited the States for the first time, after being away for a year and three months. It was wonderful to see lots of family and friends, to sleep in my own bed, and to eat a million different foods that I don’t have access to in Costa Rica. The time went by too fast, and even though it’s hard to leave again I am ready to return to Costa Rica because my life and my focus are there now, and I know there will be plenty of time to be in the States in the near future.

Now, going back in time before my trip to the States, a lot of projects are really taking flight in my community. Several months ago I received a $500 grant from Kids to Kids, and wonderful organization founded by two young girls, and powered by young Americans who raise money to help children in other countries. The money will be used as part of a program I started called Jovenes para la Paz (Youth for Peace). The project began by training leaders from 6 different community youth groups in the concept of service learning and the design and management of service learning projects. Following the training the group leaders were to pass the information from the training onto the rest of their group members. In total, there are about 100 young people involved in the 6 groups combined.

The participants recently turned in their work plans and project timelines, and each group was provided with an equal share of the grant money in order to get their projects started. I could not have been more pleased with the project plans. Two groups are working on cleaning up the environment, but they are going about it in different ways. One group is launching a dengue-awareness/prevention campaign, getting members involved in cleaning up the trash that breeds the disease-ridden mosquitoes, and making them aware of preventative techniques. The other trash clean-up group has already completed a trash collection at the local soccer field, and is now soliciting help from the municipality to install permanent trash cans and city clean-up at the field. In addition, they are planning a community-wide pick-up which includes activities that foster environmental education to participants. Two groups from the high school are planning very different, and dynamic projects. One groups is going to use recyclable materials to make exercise equipment for the physical education department at the high school. To add an additional educational component to their project they will also plan and execute a recreational camp for elementary-school aged children during their July vacation. The other high school group is painting a world map mural in the high school. They will work with a group of students from my high school in the U.S. to paint the mural, and will plan several activities which promote intercultural exchange between the two groups. This project combines a number of learning objectives that deal with art, geography, foreign language, and intercultural studies. Another group of young people are planning to start a monthly family movie night in the center of town. They will use the funds to purchase some very basic materials such as a large cloth to serve as a movie screen, and black materials which will block out light and convert the large community center into a movie theater. They plan to show a family-appropriate movie and prepare discussion questions for a forum afterwards. The entrance fee for the movie will go towards a different cause each month, and they will also be able to sell goods to support their own group at the event. This month they chose to invite families to bring a food or clothing item instead of charging an entrance fee, and these items will be donated to a very poor family with 5 children and a father who recently lost their mother/wife to an illness. The final project comes from a group of youth who live in the housing project near my house. They have two playgrounds that the government built along with the houses, but the community has not cared for these spaces properly, leaving them in need of several repairs. They will use the grant money to put on a fundraiser in order to earn money for the more expensive materials that they need to fix the park.

The groups will spend June and July executing their work plans, and in August we will have a closing event during which each group will do presentations about their experiences, sharing what they did, what they learned, challenges faced, and their plans to make the projects sustainable or to continue providing service to their communities in the future. I have been very pleased with the work of these young people and admire their commitment to service learning, which is a relatively new and unfamiliar concept in Costa Rica.

In addition to Jovenes para la Paz, I have also been busy training the 98 11th graders in the high school in the concept of service learning, and in the same methodology for designing and managing their own service learning projects. I’m sure as the school year goes on I’ll have plenty of interesting projects to report on from this work as well. Eleventh graders in Costa Rica are required to complete 30 hours of community service, so my goal with these trainings is not really getting them to participate in service, but to structure their projects in a way that they are gaining as much from the experience as the people they are helping. We work together so that their projects are meaningful to them, and to ensure that they are reflecting on their experience, and monitoring and evaluating their progress in order to be as successful as possible.

I love working with service learning, especially with adolescents because it it the most sustainable way to go about helping communities to help themselves. If young people are instilled with a value for service and solidarity, they will grow to be adults that can incorporate these values into their daily lives and work, and can pass on that same value to their children. I see so many examples of the cycle of violence in my town, it is really refreshing to see these young people so energized to do work that works to break that vicious cycle and I am convinced that they can ultimately change the world!

I’ll post more soon about my other projects, including a grant to build a chicken farm run by women in the shantytown, and a computer lab/office space for the development association in my town. I hope all is well with everyone, thanks for taking the time to read this post! Paz!