Apply to the 2009 Nicaragua CCESP: Student Application | Faculty Recommendation (Translators Only)
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Click here to experience the CCESP-Nicaragua trip up close and personal with this video!
The Cross Culture and Education Service Program (CCESP) was founded on the principles of immersion, education, cultural exchange, service, and reflection. Under these principles, the program strives to accomplish two principal objectives.
The first is to create a wide variety of learning opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate students of Dartmouth College. With such opportunities, the students will be better prepared to speak and act as ethical leaders and responsible citizens in a global community. They will better understand diverse cultures and develop intercultural skills. They will be able to integrate academic interests in service work. And they will nurture a life of self-examination and reflection.
The second, equally important objective is to provide service in an under-developed community by focusing resources on issues and concerns determined by members of the host community.
This proposal includes details of the partners of the program, the location in Nicaragua, the education component, the value cross cultural exchange, the specific development activities, and the nature of personal reflection.
The William Jewett Tucker Foundation is pleased to be one among many different organizations that contribute significantly to the CCESP. Dartmouth College has tremendous academic and professional resources that can be utilized more in service work. In order to mobilize those resources, the Tucker Foundation has partnered with Engineers Without Borders from the Thayer School of Engineering, faculty and fourth year students from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical School, and the faculty of Dartmouth College.
In order to serve the community of Siuna, Nicarauga in the most effective and respectful way, CCESP has partnered with a non-governmental organization (NGO), Bridges to Community Inc., that has staff living full time in the community. This enables us to adapt our projects to the needs ascertained by the community itself. We are very conscientious of our impact on the local community, and strongly believe that in order to serve, a program must be capable of listening to the needs of a community, as expressed by the community members themselves. Through Bridges to Community, the CCESP works with a local university (URRACAN, University of the Autonomous Region of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua), local NGOs, and informal community structures in the rural areas. These local partnerships make it possible for CCESP to connect with the community of Siuna, and to build many interpersonal relationships between Dartmouth students and Nicaraguans.
The CCESP has a long-term commitment to the community of Siuna, Nicaragua. The program believes that a consistent and sustained relationship with the local community is an essential requirement for effective service work. As such, the relationship with Siuna is one of listening, cooperation, and service. Siuna is located in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region of Nicaragua, about 20 km north of the capital city Managua. Siuna was the location of considerable gold mining early last century, but all that remains of its former prosperity is the unfortunate legacy of contaminated water sources and now inadequate infrastructure. Siuna is one of the most impoverished areas of Nicaragua, and even the urban parts have dirt streets, small wooden homes, and many animals.
The overwhelming feedback has been that the greatest need exists in the rural areas around Siuna. These rural areas have the most acute need, in terms of health, education, and agricultural productivity, and yet they are the least likely to benefit from any type of government or private services. In order to address this need, the CCESP team will spend part of their time working in Siuna and part working in one or two selected rural communities.
Our philosophy of cross-cultural exchange is well represented by the Common Ground symbol (pictured), which depicts two converging circles, paralleling the two converging worlds of Dartmouth and Nicaragua. When these two worlds come together on an equal plane—with an attitude of service, respect, and learning—they create a third realm. In this realm of overlap, transformational things happen. Each world has its own multitude of viewpoints, as represented by the many points on each circle. Lines connect these distinct points to a central point, or common ground: a place where people from different cultures recognize in each other their shared humanity. Through the relationships that form, an inextricable bond forges these two worlds together. It is in this spirit that students, faculty and professionals from Dartmouth College endeavor to carry out the Cross-Culture Education Service Project.
Before traveling to Siuna, the team members attend a 10-week seminar. The seminar focuses on both general issues facing under-developed countries and the history, culture, and character of Nicaragua. Guest speakers are invited to share with the team their expertise and experience in a wide range of issues from in fields such as health, agriculture, and economics. The team members also prepare “active learning” presentations on one small aspect of Nicaragua, in order to familiarize themselves with the country. This academic preparation makes it possible for the team members to be informed about what they see in Siuna, greatly augmenting their experience while they are there.
The CCESP forms a unique connection between Dartmouth College and the community of Siuna, allowing greater educational opportunities for Dartmouth students on several levels. The contrast of the applicability of the work done in Siuna to normal classroom activities provides invaluable training for future leaders, as they see how academics and the real world interact and how the two feed off of one another. In the past, the CCESP has sponsored research to travel to Siuna and conduct academic research with the community there.
Community Health Team: The Community Health Team will be composed of approximately ten undergraduates, three fourth year medical students from Dartmouth Medical School, and three certified medical practitioners. The Community Health Team will be responding to the need for health education with in the rural communities of Siuna, as well as the immediate short term medical needs of Siuna’s residents. The health team will conduct public health workshops on topics ranging from midwifery to safe sex in conjunction with the formal and informal medical delivery structures that exist in the greater Siuna area. In addition, the team will travel to rural areas outside of Siuna where they will hold specialty clinics dealing with specific diseases, such as Malaria and TB, or with more general health concerns, such as malnutrition and childhood vaccinations.
Community Development Team: This team will be composed of approximately ten undergraduates from Dartmouth, several undergraduates from the local university, URACCAN, one faculty advisor, and the program director. The Community Development team will work with Bridges to Community and URACCAN students in a rural local community on sustainable development projects. For example, past projects have included building latrines, introducing new crops such as cacao, building schools, and building cook stoves that reduce asthma in community members and increase fuel efficiency.
For many of the participants of the program, traveling to a developing country and sharing the circumstances of the communities there can be a life-changing experience. Quite often team members are outside of their comfort zone, both physically and emotionally, as they deal with new realities. They grapple with very difficult questions about the world in which we live and about the way we live in it. The CCESP program recognizes the value of this difficult experience and attempts to make it a positive transformation for those involved.
The team participates in regular, guided reflection sessions to process their experiences. In these sessions questions are posed by the reflections officer, and those questions are discussed either in small groups or in private journal entries, so that individuals can both develop their own thoughts as well benefit from the insights and observations of others. To a large extent, these reflection sessions characterize the lasting effect of the CCESP, and team members are encouraged to take the lessons they learn and apply those to their daily thoughts and actions.
The Cross Cultural Education Service program was probably one of the more defining experiences of my college career. I worked as a medical translator in a rural Nicaraguan health post. We saw 555 patients in 6-1/2 days and of course I learned invaluable medical skills. It was a one of a kind experience because you take down 10 undergraduates, you take down three medical students and three really knowledgeable doctors and so the medical students get the great experience of working as doctors in the developing world. The undergraduates get the experience of working essentially as medical students … You know, it’s a very different experience from going in to see a doctor, being the person who-- You’re the first one that the patient sees and you’re the first one that establishes that line of communication with them.
In the clinic in Nicaragua we struggled a lot with the problem of sustainability. For example, of the 555 patients we saw I would say a third to a half had gastrointestinal problems. That’s largely a result of the fact that over 60% of the people in the region don’t have access to potable water so we kind of struggled with this problem. We can treat your parasites for example. We have medicine that can treat your parasites. It costs us $8. It’s two pills. You take them overnight and your parasites are dead but if you go back home and you walk six hours back home and go drink dirty water again come two weeks from now you’re gonna be sick again and you’re gonna be saying where are the gringo doctors to help me out? And so we struggled a lot with this problem of sustainability and for me I gained an appreciation of public health, understanding that there’s more than medicine tying into curing problems in the developing world.
—Zak Kaufman ’08
Tucker Foundation, Dartmouth College
Nicaragua Cross Cultural Service and Exchange Program
nicaragua [at] dartmouth [dot] edu
Laura Sayler
Student Director 2008-2009
Tucker Foundation
Laura.C.Sayler [at] dartmouth [dot] edu
Lynn White Cloud
Senior Program Officer for International Service
Tucker Foundation
Lynn.C.White.Cloud@Dartmouth.EDU
