Fayetteville : UA developing course for Belize service work
Posted on Thursday, September 28, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/167988/
FAYETTEVILLE — It’s hot and humid in the classroom where University of Arkansas graduate Danis Copenhaver teaches math in Dangriga, Belize.
The concrete school building’s windows stay open to let in any breeze, and curious children gather every morning to watch the tall white woman teach their older peers.
Only about a third of the students in the Central American country will finish the U. S. equivalent of the sixth grade, said Stephen Darr, director of Peacework, a nonprofit international volunteer organization based in Blacksburg, Va.
Poor education is one of many factors contributing to high unemployment and rampant poverty in that country, he said.
It’s one of many issues University of Arkansas at Fayetteville faculty and students will tackle with a new service learning project being developed for 2007. The program will include a three credit-hour course in the spring and volunteer work in Dangriga from May 20 through June 16, worth six more hours of credit.
The project is being developed in collaboration with Peacework, which sends as many as 1, 000 volunteers to 20 countries annually, Darr said. It is the first time the organization has partnered with a university on a long-term multidisciplinary project in a developing nation. The university has committed to work in Dangriga for at least five years.
“This is a pioneer effort,” said Darr, a 1975 UA graduate. “I think the potential is tremendous.”
Copenhaver and fellow UA graduate Drew Cogbill, both 22, arrived in Belize in mid-August and will spend a year in the Stann Creek District, which includes Dangriga, conducting research and making contacts to pave the way for the program. They have spent the last six weeks meeting with government officials, hospital leaders, the district’s sole social worker and other community leaders.
Service project opportunities for the program will include engineering, agriculture, social work, literacy studies, conservation and ecology, economics, health and education, said Charles Adams, associate dean of UA’s Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. Students taking the course may work on projects such as developing water filtration systems, building community gardens or establishing family literacy projects.
“All of these things are interlinked,” Adams said. “That’s the premise of the course.”
The estimated cost of the program is $ 3, 600 plus tuition, or $ 2, 900 plus tuition for the social work project.
Kameri Christy-McMullin, UA professor with the School of Social Work, said her students will help develop the district’s meager social work system by helping to teach parenting skills and how to identify child abuse and domestic violence, among other things.
DeDe Long, UA’s director of study abroad, said she has been in contact with Darr for more than a decade about developing a service learning project, but she didn’t see a way to bridge the six colleges on campus until after the 2002 creation of the Honors College, which combines all UA honors programs.
“The Honors College offered an umbrella across those colleges,” Long said.
Darr said Belize was ideal for the pilot project because it’s safe, the primary language is English and it’s only about a five-hour journey from Arkansas by plane.
With the help of Peacework’s contacts, a delegation of 10 faculty members toured Belize in February and selected Dangriga as the project site. A second faculty trip to the region is planned for Oct. 8.
The country was known as the British Honduras until it became independent in 1973. Belize is known largely as a tourist destination with resorts and pristine beaches, said David Jolliffe, English professor and Brown Chair in English Literacy at UA.
“Once you get inland, you discover a very, very poor country,” Jolliffe said.
The official government Web site estimates Belize’s population at 273, 700, with a rich mixture of people from Central America, Asia, Europe and the Caribbean.
“There’s a lot of variety,” said Cogbill, a Fort Smith native who graduated from UA this spring with a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and music.
In addition to their work for the university, he and Copenhaver are doing volunteer work in Dangriga. Cogbill works with the mayor’s office and the local junior college, while Copenhaver teaches math and works in the Women’s Department, a division of the city government.
The two, who were in Fayetteville to participate in UA’s study abroad fair Wednesday, described Dangriga as having few paved streets, brightly painted concrete buildings, open-air markets and unemployment rate as high as 50 percent. The population is about 13, 500 and the streets constantly are bustling with people. “Everyone talks to everybody on the streets,” Cogbill said. Next to the concrete house where the graduates are staying is a wooden house measuring about 16 feet by 20 feet that holds a family of eight. Such homes are a common sight, said Copenhaver, a Conway native who graduated in May with a bachelor’s in biochemistry. She said the experience has already changed her life. “It feels different being back, and we’ve only been gone six weeks,” she said.
To contact this reporter: cpark@arkansasonline. com