As part of a new partnership model at the College of Charleston, a group of Honors College students is experiencing a unique Maymester term in Honduras. The Center for Civic Engagement and the Honors College collaborated this spring to teach a special topics course in cross-cultural community development. Students learned methods of nonprofit program development, management, and evaluation, including how to structure logic models for grants. More broadly, they learned about the approach and impact of asset-based community development and strategic planning. Students explored U.S. and Latin American relations and Honduran political history, discovering the importance of the awareness of cultural context for community-based development.
Led by Mary Pat Twomey, Assistant Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, and Trisha Folds-Bennett, Associate Dean of the Honors College, the students are currently spending three weeks in Honduras working on capacity building in partnership with the LAMB Institute, a nonprofit that serves children, youth and families. The team is focusing on the Alonzo Movement, a program within LAMB that provides a safe environment, empowering opportunities and a sense of community for youth in and around Flor del Camp, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa.
Every afternoon, the all-female team of freshmen and sophomores participates in the program, building relationships with the youth and even scoring a few soccer goals. During the day, the team has made progress in the development of evaluation tools that demonstrate the efficacy of the Alonzo Movement and on the creation of narratives that tell the personal stories of the participants in the program. Eventually, the team will produce a grant template and a one-page flyer that can be used as new partners and donors are sought for the program. “The depth of bonding that this team has experienced is remarkable,” reflects Trisha Folds-Bennett. “They have learned more about capacity building and program management than a student could ever learn in a classroom setting. We have had rich discussions about the challenges of cultural and language barriers in work across international boundaries, as well as discussions about the complexities of developing valid surveys and interview protocols that capture the essence of a multi-faceted program like the Alonzo Movement.”
Some of the unexpected moments of the trip have had the most impact on the team. On May 24, the team walked in a peace march around the community of Flor del Campo. The march was a colorful and lively array of more than 700 children and adults, wearing doves around their necks and boldly carrying signs with phrases such as “No mas violencia.” One of the signs was cut in the shape of the country of Honduras and plastered with newspaper stories of violent crime in the country. One student, Hannah Evans, observed that “It was beautiful to see the streets filled with people with so much hope and to see supportive citizens watching the procession. I remember one older woman framed by the doorway of her tiny house, waving a white handkerchief as the march passed her. So often, I take for granted my personal domestic peace, forgetting that it is something to be consciously valued.”
Inspired and fueled by the people they have met in Honduras, the team continues to use their skills and a balance of narratives and developmental tools to work with the LAMB Institute and the Alonzo Movement. Mary Pat Twomey states, “Alternative Break trips are traditionally direct service trips, but as the first credit-bearing Alternative Break experience, the students have moved beyond direct service and learned about true community partnership and indirect, capacity-building service. We know the students will take what they have learned here in Honduras and apply it to future work with the Charleston community.”
For more reflections on the trip, visit the team’s blog at http://blogs.cofc.edu/honorshonduras/blog. For more information about Alternative Break contact the Center for Civic Engagement at volunteer@cofc.edu.