Woke up at 5am just to get ready for this exciting boat trip! not only was it the best trip ever but a touching trip as well. The students at CESUPA are involved with an organization called SIFE, Student In Free Enterprise.
In villages, towns and cities around the world, SIFE students are demonstrating that business has the power to inspire hope, create opportunity where little existed and ultimately improve lives and strengthen communities. As these students succeed at helping others they develop stronger business and leadership skills, as well as a sense of service and responsibility to the community and the world around them. They are emerging as leaders who understand the opportunity for business toe make a positive economic, social and environmental impact. Their achievements are the story of SIFE's success.
This short video-clip demonstrates the students at CESUPA want to help the community at Bom Jardin make a a difference.
The community at Bom Jardin, Good Garden, gathered together to talk about their problems and concerns with their living environment because they do not have much money to spend to support their family. As from a student perspective, living conditions are harsh and interacting with one another is difficult as well. The CESUPA students communicate with the community weekly and/or monthly to update with the people on this island because they want to help them build a business and be able to grow. Third-world countries do not have as much to do as others do. In order for this community to grow and develop, they need to build their knowledge and construct the environment they live in.
Juliana said, "We are trying to help them grow and become successful people. With the Acai and Cacao growing around their area, they are able to sell and make more profits, instead of selling it for a little amount of money."
Not only was this trip touching, but watching the students interact with us. They taught us Portuguese, while we taught them English. The children are very intelligent and we can see them growing and becoming more intelligent in the future, with the right teaching skills. English is easy to learn in Brazil, from what i have heard, but it is also depends on the person, whether they want to learn it or not.
Watching the kids jump in the water was very frightening for me because we, americans, don't know if the water is safe for us; however, the children know what they are doing and what they have learned.
The young boy on the left, he stepped on a nail, we assumed because he had something stepped on something and was bleeding. As he walked around, we can see how much pain he was in, but there were no doctors, ambulance, or any emergency rooms. He just had to wrap it around with a cloth and be calm about it.
Watching him in pain made me feel very sad and wish i could help him, if i was a "real" doctor.
I enjoyed every moment with the children in the community because I was raised in America and never experienced the way they lived. If I had the chance to live there for a day or a week, I would totally do it and see how their life is compared to mine. Stephanie and I interacted with this young boy name Wellington. He is very outgoing, energetic, smart, and tons of fun to play with! All he wanted was to use Stephanie's fan as a knife! which was very scary at first because we wondered who taught him these stuff, but than we learned how to change the knife and use it as a real fan. We wanted to teach him the "good" things.
In this community, the men do most of the hard work, like climb the Acai Palms to sell or give to the women to cook, make canoes or boats, and the more "manly" stuff, while the women are cleaning, cooking, the typical female or a stay-at-home mom. This is our tourist and I never got his name. Some of the names i can understand and others i could not because of the pronunciation. During the day, the men usually climb up the Acai Palms and get the Acai down. Watching them do it was very simple, but when Patrick did it, we were all afraid he might fall down and hurt him but it was OK we have insurance for a reason ;) haha! Patrick managed to go up somewhat but than he came down. GO PATRICK!
In the end, I though long and hard to myself that I am lucky to live in the US because we have so much more than other countries and we don't take into consideration how everything we do, others might now have.
As a young girl growing up, I have watched thousands of videos about countries in poverty. Finally receiving this once in a lifetime experience, I want to give more back to my community and teach my cheerleaders back at home that they should participate in all sorts of community service. Giving back to the community is like changing someone's life.
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