Across the country, millions of college students are making fun plans for “Spring Break”.

In the Daily Bruin, University of California-Los Angeles student Eitan Arom shares his experience about his break last year, which featured more service than fun.

I’m not particularly good at laying bricks.

Yet about a year ago, over spring break, I found myself doing just that for a non-governmental farmer-support organization in rural Nicaragua with 10 other UCLA students – none of whom were any more adept than myself at masonry.

These trips – dubbed alternative spring breaks – enjoy a considerable popularity in the college community. The undergraduate student government alone has enrolled 51 people on four different trips, and a host of other student organizations offer similar opportunities, said community service commissioner Anees Hasnain, a fourth-year sociology student.

…In my case, I went to Nicaragua seeking an exciting way to spend my spring break, but walked away with a new understanding of the importance of community involvement in development projects. At the end of the week, the classroom we worked to build was left largely unfinished – the walls reached just past eye level, and the structure was left with no roof.

Although trips like mine may not be the most efficient, they are not without their benefits. Chief among these is the impact that these breaks can have on the student participants. Those Bruins embarking on an alternative break within the next two weeks should ask themselves why they are doing it.

Arom shares other students’ experiences.

David Ly, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student, had only left the United States once – to visit Canada – before travelling to Guatemala with UCLA’s Engineers Without Borders. Ly now heads the chapter’s Guatemala project, which has installed 35 rainwater catchment tanks in Momostenango.

For students like Ly, an alternative break can offer a lasting education in health and income disparities that characterize many areas of the developing world.

Tiffany Do, a third-year anthropology and geography student, said that her alternative break experience with the Community Service Commission gave her a new worldview about environmental issues and inspired her to engage in service on campus. Do is now the external programming director of the commission, and acts as head of its entire alternative spring break program.

Arom offers his perspective on what these “spring breaks” actually accomplish.

Alternative spring breaks will ultimately do little to mend systemic health and income disparities. Instead, participants and organizers of alternative breaks should undertake these trips with an accurate understanding of what they truly are – a jumping-off point for education and advocacy about the developing world.


 
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