WorldStrides Reviews

I loved the people that I lived and worked with. ELAP placed me with a couple who was tough on you but also loving and hilarious. I also worked at a hospital and was able to meet some very helpful nurses who taught me how to do some procedures, even when we were really busy. With so much interaction with native Peruvians, I was able to improve my Spanish in only a month and decided that I want to pursue a career in nursing. The city of Cusco is also amazing, especially if you like being outdoors, hiking, etc. My only regret is that I did not take more initiative at my worksite--I'm shy and probably could have done more if I had asked. I'd encourage anyone who does an internship with ELAP to speak their mind with the coordinators and with the people you work with--they're very nice and like having Americans who actually want to work and learn.

This was an incredible experience. Working in a community center teaching English to children was difficult, and balancing teaching English and taking university classes was something that I had to figure out. Overall, I think I got much more out of the experience in the DR than other ISA students in my program who didn't participate in the ELAP portion. I was able to see both sides of life in the Dominican Republic; the high-end academic and also how people live in underprivileged neighborhoods. I went for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It took me about 40 minutes to arrive at the community center by concho (the Dominican mode of transportation), and I taught one hour of class, gave the kids a 15-minute break, and taught the remaining 45 minutes. I then went back to the city and went to my university classes.

Some difficulties I encountered included my own fears of teaching, and my age. I had a certain thought process which made me think that, because I am not fluent in Korean, or because I have never taught before, I would not be able to communicate to the students as well as I'd like. Teaching English, for me, was a bit difficult. It is nothing like teaching dance, you actually have to teach someone how to speak, and you have to explain to them why certain things are said the way they are said.

An example of this is when one of my students asked me what YOLO means. Though it is slang, I still felt the need to explain it. In Korea, as I heard, there is no such expression in slang. It is just used as a phrase when you talk about deep things such as "It has always been my dream to be a dancer, well I may as well try. You only live once." It is not used as an acronym in every day life. Another example was when a student asked me what "Lates" means. {Lates as in "see you later," or "later" in the "goodbye" or "see you soon" sense.} One of his other teachers dismissed the class and said "lates" to indicate that they would see each other soon. It was not as difficult to explain as YOLO, because YOLO was both an acronym and used for simple things. "Lates" was just a shortened version of "see you later/later."

My age was also of worry to me because most of my students were older than me by a few years. I had a few students which were my age and maybe one or two that were younger. I feared my age because I knew that in Korea even a year can make a difference within a relationship. So I kept quiet about my age. My students behaved in a respectable manner as expected in a proper student/teacher relationship, until a student came across my passport. Word circulated between classes and the students behaved a bit differently. They acted cutesy and childlike. They did not in anyway misbehave nor did they talk in a rude sense they just acted almost childlike. But it made things a little simpler and I grew closer to them quicker. So I am actually more thankful that this happened.

Although I walked away from my placement learning a ton about the lives of children who were previously living on the streets suffering from various abuses, I was hoping to walk away feeling like I made a bigger impact as a volunteer. My position was just a small part of the program. When I arrived in the mornings, I would sit and wait for the boys to go through their morning meetings, duties, psychology, and sometimes a whole movie before I was able to work with them.

ISA is amazing, ELAP's administration is awesome as well. All and I had a great experience and learned a lot at my ELAP placement, but the organization I worked with wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

I worked in a children's hospital teaching for 6 of the 8 weeks I was in Peru, and had an amazing time. It was so fun and I could see the direct impact I was making every day through the smiles of the kids and appreciation of their parents. With the other 2 weeks, I did a trip to Machu Picchu and another to Huaraz, where I backpacked in Huascaran National Park. These were bar none the most astonishingly beautiful places I've ever been to. Peru is a great country and I hope to go back asap!

My time in the Dominican Republic was unforgettable. I had much fun exploring it, and the support offered to me was unexplainable! I was shown how to get around and survive incase I experienced hard times. I tell everyone about it when ever I have a chance, they have to either do the stand alone elap programs or the full semester. ELAP made living abroad away from family way okay! They were at a walking distance from my location of residency and their office hours were very convinient! One thing I would have like to see more of are "estudiantes de apoyo", I felt like their direct conversation stimulated alot of the Spanish of other students. With them around it also made it easier to ask questions so the students didn't have to seem as if they were always talking to an adult. I am always available for a testimony about my great experience in the Dominican Republic. I am fluent in both english and spanish. If you need more of my time, please consider asking someone from elap for my information.

I interned at a women's rights organization in Meknes. The branch there is small, and focuses primarily on helping women who have faced different types of abuse. It worked to gain instrumental change in marriage and family laws in Morocco as well, and continues to help Meknassi women fight personal battles as well. The staff members are absolutely incredible. I became very close with them, as well as many of the women in the community who frequented the center. Every week, the center holds a cooking class. The women who attend each take a turn teaching the others how to make a specific dish from traditional desserts to snacks and savory meals. It is a time and place for them to bond over similar experiences and feel protected and comforted in a safe environment. I observed and participated in these classes each week, often getting Arabic and Darija lessons from the women in exchange for teaching them English. The language barrier was difficult at times - my ability to speak French wasn't always enough, but interacting with the women at the classes allowed me to learn to communicate in other ways, on a deeper level. I developed great relationships built on respect and mutual understanding that will last the rest of my life, and improve the way I work with others in frustrating professional environments. It also contributed to my teaching skills, and will definitely be important when I apply for a Fulbright Teaching Assistantship next year. Other days at the center were very slow. Because the Meknes branch is small (and I did not speak Darija), there was not always a lot to do, and sometimes it was difficult to find productive work for the required amount of weekly hours. The other intern and I resorted to organizing the library, and performed cleaning and secretarial tasks when we weren't teaching English or learning Arabic from the staff. We got to meet many inspirational women including the center's lawyer and president, who were both intelligent and fascinating. I learned a lot about differences in culture between the U.S. and Morocco, especially in terms of women's rights and societal roles.

The ELAP website had a lot of incorrect or misleading information, and I did not end up having a very active role in most of the volunteering that I did. For one of my placements, I was at a preschool in which my biggest jobs were taking students to the bathroom and observing the class. Another placement involved sitting around with a group of 12-15 year old girls in their youth home, playing games or watching movies. These activities were not a waste of time, but I do absolutely think that my time there could have been better spent both to help the organizations and individuals with whom I was working, and to learn from my experience.

Going to Cusco through ISA-ELAP was easily one of the best decisions I've ever made. Any question I had was answered promptly and the staff in Cusco was so helpful. They went above and beyond to make sure students were always getting the best deals on their personal side trips and were always available to talk to. When I was sick, one of the staff visited me in my host family's home to check on me. The Cusco staff also always made sure us students were comfortable in our placements by accompanying us several times until we felt comfortable getting there and being there by ourselves. The staff definitely made me feel right at home!

ELAP was an overall great experience for me. It provided me with the opportunity to advance my Spanish language profiency(from a very beginner to an intermediate level) by providing me access to a great private tutor. I was then able to apply what I leaned at both my internship placement and real world situations. The staff did a great job of scheduling social activities. They also were able to get me the best possible internship placement that allowed me to work with kids and in a medical setting which were my two main goals.