Spring break immerses students in service, culture

By Jessica Alway

While many students traveled to sunny tropical locations over spring break, 91 people from Santa Clara spent their break building houses for the less fortunate and immersing themselves in different societies. The students traveled to East Palo Alto, El Salvador, Arizona, Tijuana and East Los Angeles to participate in community service and faith-based missions, better known as immersion trips.

Four of these five trips were sponsored and supervised by the Center for Student Leadership and coordinated by student leaders, with the objective of providing participants with a chance to live in a marginalized community. The fifth trip, to the Dolores Mission in East Los Angeles, was a faith-based trip organized through Campus Ministry.

Forty students traveled to Tijuana, Mexico. There they split into two groups and, together with the families in need of shelter, built two houses. During the week the students lived in tents outside the city, waking up at six in the morning to drive 45 minutes to the work site. They worked until six at night on the house, but took breaks to play with the children from the surrounding area.

"You grow really close with the people you are building the house with," junior Gabe Currie, a delegate of the trip, said. "But you develop a special bond with the people you are building the house for."

"We take so much for granted here. These people had nothing, but they were still happy. I left school worried about classes and requirements, but there (Mexico) none of that matters. People care if they have enough food to keep them alive or a place to stay if it rains. It gives you a whole new perspective," she added.

MaryAnn Dakkak was part of the trip to Tijuana last year, but chose another venue this spring break, coordinating the trip to West Valley, Arizona. Eighteen others joined her in working on four separate houses, all in different stages of creation. They built the frame for one house, added the siding on the next, completed the walls in another, and worked on the final interior modifications of the fourth.

"Our group dynamic was so amazing," sophomore Dakkak said. "We learned so much about ourselves and everyone else in the group. There is a camaraderie formed that is simply indescribable. I want everyone to participate in an immersion trip so they can understand how incredible it really is."

Dakkak, along with the three other coordinators of the immersion trips, Maria Elaina Gudamuz, Amber League and Jennifer Young, were appointed early last spring. During fall quarter applications were due for students wishing to participate in the trips. Applicants could indicate a preferred a location, but mostly applied for the general experience. It was up to the coordinators to decide who went on what trip.

"We had to be especially careful about the selection for the El Salvador trip," Dakkak said. "It is probably the most emotionally straining of the four because you are placed in a completely different culture. You are stepping into something most of us have never seen before."

The ten students who made the trip to Guarjila, El Salvador, were split up into twos and lived with families and learned about how the lives of El Salvadorians were before, during, and after the Salvadoran Civil War. Yet not everyone traveled out of the country, some traveled just north of Santa Clara.

"Instead of traveling to a faraway destination to experience another culture, this trip allowed students to see the injustices that are occurring in their own backyard," junior Kristin Love, a participant of the East Palo Alto immersion trip, said.

In its second year, eight students spent time tutoring grade school children, helping at the Ecumenical Hunger Council and teaching job skills to underprivileged youth. In addition, students met community leaders and developed bonds with community members.

Unlike the other trips, 10 undergraduates, one graduate student, one staff member and two campus ministers traveled to East Los Angeles to the Dolores Mission. It is a Jesuit parish whose parishioners take the initiative to address issues that challenge their community. The participants learned about the community's service to the homeless, misguided youth, childcare needs, and education.

All of these trips included preparation and follow-up components. In preparation, the delegates discuss a variety of issues pertinent to immersion experiences with Santa Clara faculty during the winter quarter.

Topics included the dynamics of participation-observation, the socioeconomic implications of community development, the spiritual components of immersion and its implications for lifelong dedication to justice. Participants took part in reflection sessions following the trips as well, which allowed them to greater understand the impact of the trip.

"We want the delegates to make both spiritual and intellectual connections before they leave for their excursion so they have a richer context to pull from when they return," senior Patty Adams, associate director of SCCAP, said. "The student-run nature of the program, as well as the emphasis upon preparation and reintegration, is what sets Santa Clara's immersion trips apart from others."

Currie also found the trip rewarding.

"I can honestly say it has made an incredible impact on my life," Currie said. "I want to go back as soon as I can. I know I want this type of service to be a permanent part of my life. I think I am going to apply to the JVC (Jesuit Volunteer Corp) after I graduate and it is because of this experience."

The University is planning to create an Immersion Center for next year to coordinate the trips once again.

"The Center won't be its own entity, in that it won't act completely independently," Dakkak, who plans to be involved again next year, said. "It is more like we will balance between the Arrupe Center and CSL, and remain closely tied to SCCAP, but still retain some individual clout."