Last Intercordia Student Departs For Placement
Last night at 11:40 p.m., we saw our last Intercordia student from St. Michael’s University College off on her 3 month placement to Brazil to live in a L’Arche community in Sao Paolo. It was a full week of students leaving to complete the last segment of their Intercordia experience.
The week began with the departure of 5 students for Esteli, Nicaragua. Students from St. Mike’s College in Toronto, Kings College in London and St. Jerome’s College in Waterloo are currently enrolled in a 2 week spanish course to prepare them for their work with FUNARTE, Miraflor & Los Pipitos.
Early Tuesday morning we said “bon voyage” to 8 of our students departing for Ecuador to live with host families around the country and placed in work projects provided by our international partner FRI. Students from St. Thomas More College in Saskatoon, St. Mike’s, St. Jerome’s and King’s will be working in medical clinics, centres for seniors, street kids, children with special needs as well as schools.
Tuesday afternoon we saw two groups off. Five of our students from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, St. Jerome’s, Kings and St. Thomas More departed for Bosnia Herzegovina where they will work together at the Omladinski Centar working among Christian and Muslim youth facilitating programs designed to bring reconciliation in a community torn apart by war. Later we said good-bye to four students from the University of Ottawa, St. Mike’s, and St. Thomas who departed for Mancini, Swaziland where they will be working in a new Intercordia placement with SWAPOL. These Intercordia students will spend three months working alongside people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and their affected families. We are looking forward to hearing about the experiences that will come out of this new Intercordia venture.
Early Thursday morning we saw our students from McGill in Montreal, St. Jerome’s, St. Mike’s and Kings off to Honduras. In Honduras these students are working with our international partner International Youth Cultural Exchange (ICYE) where students are placed throughout Honduras working in youth centres, health clinics and a centre for visually impaired adults.
Later on Thursday we bid farewell to seven students from St. Thomas More, St. Jerome’s, St. Mike’s and Kings who made the treck to Ghana, West Africa where they will teach in public schools of the Ada-Foch region just east of Accra, the capital. Soon afterwards we saw our two students from Kings and St. Mike’s off to Ukraine where they will spend their three month placements with Faith and Light working alongside adults with developmental disabilities in sheltered workshops.
On Friday morning we saw 2 students from McGill and St. Thomas University off to the Dominican Republic where they will be working on a new placement project in the town of Consuelo. Students will be working alongside Canadian teacher Shannon Conaghan who has connected us to many locally run NGO’s including after school programs, young mother support centres and medical clinics.
We wish all of our students a safe journey abroad, a time filled with adventure and new learnings and finally an opening of their hearts to the people and places they will encounter in the next three months. We look forward to your stories and reflections.
