Latin America Gap Semester

Education can empower individuals and communities to improve health and create equity and justice. You’ll investigate how governments, nonprofits, and individuals use education to meet the needs of growing communities. Your group will work to provide support to English teachers in public schools to understand education in rural Costa Rica. You’ll live with local families and learn how parents and their children are affected by education. TBB students work in schools in the Guanacaste Province, alongside English teachers in classrooms as teachers’ assistants. Program Leaders provide the students with some basic workshops on classroom management and lesson prep and hold weekly debrief sessions to help students brainstorm approaches for their classrooms.

As communities around the world adapt to changes in climate, culture and globalization, the question of how to manage natural resources in rural areas is more pressing than ever. Maintaining quality of life, providing jobs for women and the elderly, and harnessing natural resources in a responsible manner are challenges that will determine the development trajectory of many countries. In Guatemala, you’ll live with indigenous families to learn the innovative ways rural people and governments are creating economic opportunity while preserving their environment and culture. You’ll work alongside a local farmers co-op to see how they balance the needs of people, profit, and planet in their efforts to increase sustainability. The students will spend four weeks in Tecpan, Chimaltenango helping the community prepare their land plots for planting, and providing extra labor for families who do not have enough people to tend to their land.