Global Citizen Education

Children drinking unsanitary water is a big problem in rural areas of Kenya and Uganda.

With the support of a C.A.R.E. travel award, a student traveled to this area of Africa to hold workshops in solar disinfection. He trained teachers, health officers and community leaders in these methods with the result of waterborne disease decreasing by 25 to 67% and school attendance increasing by 17 to 25%.

For many women without education or a trade in the Philippines, the sex trade is often the path of desperation that is taken in order that their children can be fed and clothed.

A volunteer supported by C.A.R.E. traveled to Cebu City in the Visayas to work on the first construction stages of a basic trade school designed for women at risk. The school has also been designed to incorporate a day care for the womens' young children and the project will form a good model for other schools to be developed to improve the lives of Philippine women.

The Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy does vital work for Indian children with this debilitating condition.

A team of four Occupational Therapy students from UBC's school of rehabilitation medicine traveled to Kolkata, India for intensive work with the children, including physiotherapy, assessments, hydrotherapy and also community outreach activity. During their off hours, the students did volunteer work at the Mother Theresa Home for the Sick and Dying and at the Mother Theresa Orphanages.

A nurse from Canada overcame the challenges of a flash flood, attack by fire ants, and coming down with dengue fever to work with the children in the crime-ridden slums of Davao City, Philippines.

She worked with a program designed to help the children overcome the lack of education and medical resources that lead them to drop out of school and turn to gangs and street killings. She took steps to create an abuse prevention, parenting and community health program that will better the lives of these children and continues her work back in Canada by helping to write the manual of operations...

Two nurse practitioners, with the assistance of a C.A.R.E. travel award, traveled to Uganda and Burundi to work on "Project 10,000 Bridges", a program providing primary healthcare to those in need.

The pair participated with a medical team to provide health care to over 1500 people with illnesses such as malaria, respiratory and skin infections, typhoid, malnutrition and dysentery.

In the poor section of Khaylitsha, a settlement near Cape Town, South Africa, the children receive a sub-standard education.

A child in Grade 5 may have only an English level up to the average Grade 1 student in the city. One of the projects a volunteer supported by a C.A.R.E. travel grant participated in was the construction of a building suitable for after-school study sessions. It was also an exercise in community co-operation because the building had to be constructed with limited resources, time and materials and the outcome was very successful.

Swaziland is a nation ravaged by HIV/AIDS. The virus and associated syndrome affects over 40% of the population. A group of UBC students traveled to help local construction workers build a community centre to help grandmothers who have to provide food and shelter for a significant population of orphans. The community was named "Litsemba letfu" which translates into "Our Hope", to reflect the desired impact of the students on the community.

During May and June, a group of students from the University of British Columbia worked in Swaziland under the guidance of Developing World Connections,...

A group of concerned individuals, including a Canadian Paralympian athlete, Andrea Holmes, visited the orphanage in Hunan Province, China to provide inspiration and motivation for the abandoned children with disabilities. Andrea shared her personal story with the children of overcoming adversity related to her disability. The shared tears of the group were filled with love, hope and opportunity that these children have from supporters all around the world.

Travel by six individuals, including Paralympian athlete Andrea Holmes, to a home for abandoned children with disabilities in Changsha,...

In Mozambique, Africa, many children are forced to live in constant hunger at the garbage dump in 40 degree temperature with the smell of burning plastic and flies buzzing around. Our student volunteers traveled from Canada to provide wound care, distribute medications and bread and water, and offer support to the children and families to rebuild community and morale, despite living in such horrible conditions.

A student volunteer spent a week in Maputo, Mozambique's economically stable yet somewhat dangerous capital city. The most difficult outreach days were those she spent at the...

A team of three medical and two dentistry students traveled to the remote Spiti Valley between Northern India and Tibet to help 400 young students to develop a health curriculum with focus on their local diet and a culturally sensitive hygiene program as a preventative approach.

The medical team screened all 400 children at the school, looking at how they were growing, treating those diagnosed with scabies or lice, and anemia, as well as checking their overall health.

The team taught the staff a program of iron supplementation that became part of their daily lunch routine, semi-annual...