SAIS Reports
April - May 2008

Students Spend Spring Break in Panama Making a Difference

Palm trees, sunny skies and white sand beaches are some of the images that might come to mind when thinking about "spring break."

For 10 SAIS students who traveled to Panama for their mid-March break, those images—along with building latrines, helping construct an aqueduct and learning about sustainable development and rural health issues—were a reality.

The SAIS Volunteer Committee, which facilitates the collective involvement of students pursuing volunteer opportunities in the Washington community, organized the trip. The fall semester’s service activity was a building project with the local Habitat for Humanity.

"This spring the committee was looking for a larger project that would concentrate the energies of participants on a specific goal over a longer term. With the Panama trip, I believe we were able to achieve this objective," said Sean McGowan, a second-year student in the China Studies Program and a trip leader.

Chris Meyer, a second-year student in the International Development Program, provided the impetus for the group’s choice of destination. Prior to coming to SAIS, he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama for three years. "I knew we could get a current Peace Corps volunteer in the community to help with preparations and do the necessary follow-up. No development project can be finished in a week. There is always something to be done, whether it is maintenance, training, etc. By having a volunteer at the site for another eight months after we left, we improved the chances that our work in conjunction with community members would be sustainable."

The students spent the first part of the trip in Nuevo Paraiso, helping to build three composting latrines. The group worked side by side and ate their meals with the very families who would benefit from the latrines. The students, who spent much of the week living with no running water or electricity, also helped to construct an aqueduct in a neighboring town. Other outreach activities included touring the indigenous community of Arimae’s nature reserve; visiting a convent with a sustainable farm, soap-making operation and plant nursery; and meeting with local hospital officials about the area’s health system.

"As someone with only one prior short experience working in a developing country, I viewed this as an excellent opportunity to learn more about the circumstances in which the rural poor live. Having firsthand knowledge of the subject will make me much more effective in the development work I do in my post-SAIS career. As a bonus, it gave me a chance to practice my Spanish," said Amelia Greenberg, a second-year student in the International Development Program.

Sarah Rotman, Greenberg’s International Development classmate, said the project allowed her "to get grounded again in what is really important. Sometimes as SAIS students we get so worked up over exams, deadlines, job interviews, internships and grades that we forget why we are here studying. By going to a small village in Panama to do a work project and hanging out with locals and other SAIS students, I came back refreshed for my last few months at SAIS, with a renewed sense of purpose."

The SAIS administration as well as the International Development and International Policy programs provided funding for the trip. To finance purchase of the construction materials for the Panama projects, McGowan and International Development Program student Jonathan Bartolozzi secured a $1,500 community service grant from The Johns Hopkins University Alumni Association.

"As trip leaders, we wanted to do some volunteer service overseas and share that experience with our fellow students. A frustration for many of us is that few people have actually lived, even for a short period of time, in an area with no basic infrastructure. This trip to Panama was an opportunity to do some good with our spring break and enrich the SAIS experience of our classmates," said Meyer.

The SAIS Volunteer Committee’s service trip to Panama exemplifies one of the primary goals of the school’s "Rolling Back the Future" strategic plan—enhancing the student experience. SAIS is looking for new ways to increase co-curricular opportunities that connect the ideas and analytical tools acquired in the classroom to the people and places students study. Other trips over the break included a group of 14 Latin American Studies Program students from the Washington and Bologna campuses traveling, with the support of the Starr Foundation, to Beijing and Shanghai to research the expanding political and economic ties between China and Latin America. The Strategic Studies Program hosted its annual international staff ride—this year to Spain to study the country’s civil war of the 1930s.

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