by Julia Gardner
Stepping outside of the bubble of fellow study-abroad students and engaging with your host community is one of the most rewarding– but sometimes one of the most challenging– parts of studying abroad. For Isabel Gill ‘26, the search for deeper immersion in her host community led not only to an internship with a local organization, but also to being awarded a Middlebury Sustainable Study Abroad grant.
Last fall, Isabel studied abroad in Valdivia, Chile with a Middlebury Schools Abroad program. Although there were only four other American students at her university– one of the reasons she chose Valdivia specifically– classroom culture often led to working with international students in her classes regardless. Interested in getting more involved with her community, Isabel reached out to la Fundación Superación de la Pobreza (Foundation for Overcoming Poverty), a Chilean organization founded in the late 1900s in response to post-dictatorship issues in the country. The foundation leads initiatives throughout Chile to alleviate a variety of poverty-related issues in rural communities.
Isabel was offered a position to work in a team with two other interns, who were both Chilean students at her university. Together, the three helped the foundation kick off a newly developed program, La Red de Corazones Verdes (The Network of Green Hearts.) In the region where she studied, most women who don’t go to college work as artisans, selling handicrafts in local markets. La Red de Corazones Verdes aims to bring these women together in workshops where they can learn new ways of making sustainable crafts, sharing knowledge and making connections along the way. The workshops that Isabel supported included creating soap from used cooking oil, repurposing old clothing to make aprons, and cooking with local plants.
With her fellow interns, Isabel helped plan, publicize, and run the workshops. At the beginning of the internship, she learned that their work would culminate in a final seminar, during which the interns would take a leadership role in workshops. The event would bring together women from all three of the rural communities served, and split the day between educational workshops and a space to reflect and give feedback on the program’s work throughout the year. While planning the final event, Isabel discovered the Middlebury Sustainable Study Abroad grant, which provides funding for students on any Middlebury-run study abroad program working on research or projects related to sustainability. She was awarded the funding, which she was able to put towards supplies and publicity for the workshops.
During the final seminar, Isabel was given the opportunity to design a workshop on any topic of her choice. She decided to incorporate her neuroscience background and teach about the neurological and mental health benefits of making crafts with your hands. The goal of the workshop was to help the women reflect on how making crafts could be an act of self care as well as a means to support their family. In general, she had found that a lot of the women struggled with feelings of isolation before joining the program. Through her workshop, Isabel said that she hoped to “help them reflect on how making crafts doesn’t have to just be about supporting their families, but can also be an act of self care and a way of connecting to other people.”
For students interested in community engagement while abroad, Isabel recommends reaching out to organizations of interest in the community to see if there’s one that would be excited to bring your work into current initiatives. “Community leaders already know what they need,” she told me. “What you can contribute is another perspective and connections to new sources of funding.”
Many Wesleyan students go on Middlebury-run programs– but there are also plenty of grants from other sources that interested students on other programs can access for work in their own communities. If you’re interested in conducting a similar project while abroad, both your program provider and the Office of Study Abroad can advise you and help connect you to opportunities for funding!
