UM Study Abroad Students Continue to Give

October 13, 2009 “We didn’t know what to expect at all.”

That’s how Valerie Blair, a University of Mississippi junior nursing student from Corinth, Miss., summarized what she and 11 other Ole Miss students were feeling when they landed in Ambergris Caye in Belize. While the students didn’t know what to expect, they did know why they were there—to serve school children in an impoverished area of San Mateo.

As part of the UM Study Abroad program, the students traveled with Kim Shackelford, associate professor of social work, to the town of San Pedro, a popular tourist destination. But the students did much more than admire the clear blue water and soak up Central American rays during their spring break. They taught Spanish-speaking children living on the outskirts of the island to speak and read English. Now, several months after the trip, students from the group are still reaching out to San Mateo’s children through their efforts to raise money for school children with poor eyesight.

Shackelford said the students were eager to make a difference in the community as soon as they arrived.

“I went to Belize with 12 students I didn’t know and within a week I knew they were very service-oriented,” she said. “They worked hard in a difficult situation.”

Blair and Diamondhead native Rebecca Werner, a senior engineering major, are among the students now raising money to help buy eyeglasses for the needy children of Holy Cross Anglican School. Both are members of the Alpha Psi Chapter of Delta Gamma sorority and are selling calendars created by Delta Gamma sister Christy Sims, a senior business administration major from Madison.

Blair and Werner said one of their main jobs during the week was to assist with screenings of students at the local eye clinic.

“We asked if we could go help because Delta Gamma’s philanthropy is Service for Sight, so helping at the eye clinic drew our interest,” Werner said. “We didn’t really have any introduction to people at all. We just told them we were there to help, asked them what we could do and told them where we were from. They gave us all this paperwork and said, ‘Get these people.’ A lot of it was talking to the students and their parents and helping them to fill out their forms correctly before they went in to take their eye exam.”

According to Shackelford, many of the school children’s screenings concluded that they needed glasses.

“We did an eye chart screening on kids at the Holy Cross Anglican School and found that about 35 of the children needed glasses,” Shackelford said. “We sent these children for an eye exam at the clinic. Our students went with the children being sent to the clinic. The students learned that even though the exam proved the children needed glasses, the parents could not afford to buy the glasses. One pair costs $40 if they use donated frames and over $120 if frames are bought new.”

Blair said her experience at the clinic prompted her and Werner to use their philanthropic resources to provide more help to the students.

“Before we went on the trip, we had talked about the idea of using Service for Sight to help these kids. It was so ironic to remember that. I thought it was neat that the opportunity arose and we jumped on it,” Blair said. “It was neat how it worked out because before we left the clinic, we spoke with the director who told us more about the funding that comes into the clinic for screenings and exams. I think that sparked our interest in continuing our efforts to help after we got back home.”

Blair said the contrast between the vacation areas of Ambergris Caye and the outlying communities was stark.

“I can still see us standing there on the school site, looking across the water at this nice resort area,” she said. “It was so ironic because the school is in such a poor area. I remember seeing the gorgeous houses across the bay and wondering how people around the school could be living in these conditions they were.”

Werner agreed.

“We crossed the bridge from the resort area to go to this area of Belize. We went through this house district that curved around it, and then walked into this little fenced-off area,” she said. “The area around Holy Cross School is where you see houses made out of stacks of tin or 2 x 4’s placed together and not properly set, not structurally sound, but good enough to survive in for a little while.” Many homes have no electricity or water, and no one has a waste disposal system. There are no roads, only handmade hazardous wooden bridges built over the sewage and garbage lead to the children’s homes.

Blair and Werner said some of the fondest memories were working with the children, including Alexis, who was upset when he found out he needed glasses.

“Alexis was quite a character,” Werner said. “He would always come see us after school and wanted to talk to us and tell us everything going on.”

Blair had to convince Alexis that needing glasses wasn’t such a bad thing.

“He wasn’t thrilled about that at all. I didn’t realize there was such a stigma there against glasses,” Blair said. “When he found that out, he was sort of in denial until l put on my glasses and convinced him that there was nothing wrong with them.”

Werner said volunteers are in high demand in the San Mateo community.

“One child I worked with didn’t have an easy time focusing; he always got distracted. We had to make it fun for him to learn,” Werner said. “It’s a lot like what our children face here. Hiring teachers is a different process there. There is a huge need for extra help.”

Blair added that the children need more time spent on them individually.

“One-on-one time with them seemed to make a difference because they’re in such big classrooms all the time, and they don’t get as much individualized attention as they need. They’re doing well to be enrolled in school where such a low percentage of people continue their education past the 8th grade,” Blair said. “There’s great need there, even if it’s just letting someone know you care.”

Shackelford said she was pleased with the effort all the students gave throughout the week and felt each one had learned a great deal from the experience.

“Each student individually did a lot of thinking about what is important,” Shackelford said. “It makes them think about what service they can do and shows them that they really can make a big difference in a week’s time.”

Blair said the appreciation of the students and parents stood out most to her.

“A girl we had spent a lot of time with that week named Irene made us a homemade card and made sure we got it before we left. It was just her thanking us over and over for being her friend and being there for her,”” Blair said. “Even though we were only able to be there for four days with her, she was incredibly thankful. For me it was seeing how grateful they are for everything.”

Werner said she was struck by how the residents did so much with so little and that the experience provided her a new perspective.

“It’s an eye-opener to see how people who have so little have so much because they’re so incredibly grateful and thankful all the time for everything. Just the simplest act of kindness we gave them — hanging out with them or going to play soccer with them during their break — meant the world to them,” Werner said. “I think relationship-building is something I learned. You can go anywhere, and whether there’s a language barrier or not, you can still connect with people.”

Nathan Gregory

The UM Study Abroad program and Shackelford have planned two more trips to Ambergris Caye: a three-week Wintersession trip that is offered as an elective social work course for all University of Mississippi undergraduate and graduate students and a service-oriented trip during spring break 2010 open to all majors also. To learn about these and other programs offered, go to http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/study_abroad/, or contact Brett Byrnes at brett@olemiss.edu.

To learn more about contributing to Delta Gamma’s Service for Sight project, contact Rebecca Werner at rawerner@olemiss.edu or visit http://www.olemissdg.com.

For more information on the Department of Social Work, go to http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/socialwork/ or contact Dr, Kim Shackelford at kshackel@olemiss.edu.