Orange Walk, Belize | May 26 - June 2

Bonners Abroad Blog | Agenda | About Orange Walk | Meet the Lead Team | "Build Yourself, Build Belize" Curriculum

About

The Bonner Village Global Village Conference is a gathering of students from across the Bonner Network in a global context, with the mission to bring Bonners together to engage in sustainable international development projects.  Bonner students, staff, faculty, and community partners are invited to the conference and engage in the following activities:

• expand their their international perspective through conference lectures, workshops, presentations, and cultural immersions;
• serve with the local community as part of an ongoing strategic partnership through the Bonner Global Village Network; and
• strategize about the ongoing implementation and management of the Bonner Global Village program.

This year, Bonners will travel to Orange Walk, Belize to teach Social Entrepreneurship to primary school youth as a way to help them build their communities, while also stimulating the economy. They will be working in St. Peter's Anglican School and the Louisiana Government School. The curriculum, called "Build Yourself, Build Belize", integrates the Bonner Common Commitments and encourages students to create their own jobs through Social Entrepreneurship and will be tested for application in other Bonner Global Village communities in the future.

The philosophy behind this trip mirrors much of the work the Bonner Network does domestically — mainly with youth programs like after school programs, summer camps, empowerment programs, tutoring, mentoring, and other life and leadership skill development.  With this being a strong focus of our work domestically, this area has been a primary focus for our international programming. To underscore the importance of youth empowerment worldwide, Bonner participants on the trip were required to read the Bloomberg BusinessWeek article The Youth Unemployment Bomb, which raises up the importance of youth engagement around the world — potentially laying the groundwork for a common theme across the Bonner Global Village Network. The students will use this article, as well as their experiences on the ground, to develop the future of the Bonner Global Village Programming.

To learn more about the trip, see the links above.