CAHS Students Give and Receive on International Service Learning Trips

"To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, to gain all while you give, to roam the roads of lands remote, to travel is to live.” The spirit of that quote from Hans Christian Andersen, a Danish author from the 19th century, was exemplified by recent trips taken by two separate groups from the University of Cincinnati (UC) College of Allied Health Sciences (CAHS). The CAHS students and faculty who traveled to Nicaragua and Mexico in May not only impacted the lives of the people they encountered on their service-learning trips, but also had their lives affected as well.

Nicaragua Provides Impactful Immersion

The 22 CAHS students and four faculty who went to Nicaragua on a multidisciplinary trip during the first week of May stayed in the homes of locals, immersing themselves with families, most of whom spoke only Spanish. 

"The family we stayed with made us feel at home on the first day of meeting them and they made us feel welcomed in Nicaragua,” says CAHS student Brooke Stewart. "It was a great cultural immersion experience because we got to learn about their culture and customs first hand.”

The home stay host families were vetted and each family hosted two to four students during their week-long stay, with each student getting a bed and an electric fan to help them stay cool in the un-air conditioned homes. To help make sure the students got a true cultural immersion, they were required to eat all three meals every day with their host families. 

"Cultural immersion is where you eat with them, you talk with them, you play charades with them if you don’t speak Spanish,” says Xan Boone, assistant professor in the School of Social work who organizes the trip to Nicaragua. "We don’t require our students to speak Spanish but the home stay host families speak Spanish and we have interpreters in our work sites, but a big part of the immersion is learning how to communicate.”

The students worked at a variety of sites, including schools and clinics, as well as with Solidaridad, an agency helping women who have been the victims of domestic violence rebuild their lives. They also did in-home visits, helping at-risk members of the community.

Boone says one of things that impacted the students during their community outreach is how the local children often thought foods that tasted good were healthy and foods that tasted bad were unhealthy. "The UC students were able to talk to the kids about the differences in healthy and unhealthy foods and how you can make healthy foods be something that you like to eat,” says Boone.

Hands-On Health Care in Mexico

A second interprofessional team of 14 students and eight faculty from CAHS did their annual service learning experience in Cancun, Mexico, working with the Palace Foundation. Founded in 2004 by the directors of the Palace Resorts hotel chain, the Palace Foundation works toward solving social problems in the areas of health, wellness and the environment. This was the fourth consecutive year the foundation invited the CAHS team to come to Mexico.

The students on the Mexico trip gained hands-on experience in their fields of study while providing free health care information and screenings for the people they worked with in Cancun. The team helped hundreds of patients in locations such as the Center for Exceptional Children, hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, nursing homes and food production plants. The foundation also provided room, board and transportation for all participants.

The group of students traveling to Mexico raised about $2,700 which was spent entirely on supplies donated during the trip in Cancun. Those supplies included hearing aids, orthotics, a wheelchair and a walker, as well as splints and braces.  

"I will never forget my service trip to Cancun,” says Elizabeth Vennefron, a senior student in the coordinated program in dietetics. "It was a challenging yet very rewarding experience. Since then, I have more confidence when counseling, a deeper love for nutrition, and appreciation of the Mexican culture."

For Katie Bachus, a graduate student working on her doctorate in physical therapy, the trip to Mexico felt like an entire clinical rotation wrapped into just one week. "I can’t think of a more perfect way to round out the end of my second academic year within the doctorate of physical therapy program,” Bachus says. "The experience taught me to communicate with patients on a whole new level, it continuously challenged my clinical decision-making skills, and allowed me to work with a very diverse group of skilled professionals.” 

"In many of our health-related professions these students have grown up in a global society, they want to give back and they want the opportunity to see the world,” says Tina Whalen, EdD, dean of the college. "Knowing that that’s an opportunity here at UC where it might not be at another school they’re considering is good for us to have.”