St. Lucia Service Trip

As I have reflected on the trip shared with our students and partners, I feel a sense of loss that is likely inevitable: it’s done; could we have done more, done it better?  I miss the people we have connected with in a profound way, bound by our common work and experiences.  They may not believe it, but I really miss my students (I include here my LC students)! 

Yet, I also feel a sense of pride in the effort and the undeniable good work we accomplished together with the people of St. Lucia in a small but significant corner of this vast globe. No one could make such a trip with an open heart and mind and not be changed by it. And no one can view the photos on this site and miss the mutual joy created in a world that needs it sorely. Our students and faculty represented a different face to St. Lucians than the one that has predominated of late (or the one that has predominated historically in the Caribbean, one might easily argue).

Finally I feel a great debt of thanks to all those that made this project possible, including decisions makers at both colleges. This is the way to do study abroad.

This trip to St. Lucia best demonstrates what our college emphasizes: taking your knowledge outside the classroom into the wider world, learning by doing, and a priority for service by collaborating with others. 

 Our students themselves represent the diversity we enjoy at Randolph – half of them are international students and the group represents various ethnicities.  

I’m also constantly amazed at their creativity.  We intentionally placed them in the lead with constructing the activities we are doing with the St. Lucian students and what they have designed is not just ingenious, but takes into account all that they have learned about the Caribbean and St. Lucia in its full historical and international context.  They are well prepared to make a real and positive difference on this study abroad opportunity. 

It’s going to be brilliant.

Collaborative Study Abroad Trip Takes Randolph College Students to St. Lucia

Eight Randolph College students will join with students from Lynchburg College in the first ever collaborative study abroad effort between the two schools, a service learning trip to the tiny island nation of St. Lucia, one of the Caribbean’s Windward Islands.

The trip is one of Randolph College’s International Study Seminars. These 1-3 week study seminars, led by faculty, take students to countries around the globe to address topics across a wide range of academic disciplines.

St. Lucia is just over three times the size of Washington D.C., yet it is known internationally as one of the most beautiful islands in the world. Besides lovely beaches, St. Lucia offers tourists trips through rainforests and views from dramatic volcanic peaks. And yet, like many small islands, St. Lucia faces serious challenges: inflation, unemployment, economic uncertainty, and even persistent poverty.

Randolph College’s students make up just over a third of the travelling group, but half of our number are originally from the Caribbean – three from Jamaica (Camille Benjamin, Sharli-Ann Esson, and Wendi Thompson), and one from St. Thomas, USVI (Erika Nye). They are the only Caribbean students among those making the trip, headed by Randolph College sociology professor Brad Bullock, who specializes in the Caribbean. Of the other four Randolph students, one is from Bangladesh (Shubra Barua), one has ties to Venezuela (Maria Lugo), one is African American (Foluke Beveridge), and one is from Danville, Virginia, making her first plane flight ever (Sarah Montgomery). None of the eight Randolph students has ever before traveled to St. Lucia.

During a week of intensive study about St. Lucia and its international context, students will prepare for several service projects that address particular needs identified by people in St. Lucia.

Rather than doing work for others, they will instead be working side-by-side with the people they meet. Students are scheduled to tutor a class of grade three boys to address reading and math deficiencies, finally taking them on a beach clean-up day and picnic that will include some water time.

Other projects involve pitching in to restore a community center, planning a “poetry slam” style event with young people in a poor fishing village, building with their families a playground for pre-schoolers who currently have no safe place to play, and cooperating with girls from troubled backgrounds to create a new garden.