Communication Sciences & Disorders in Belize

I believe I got all the information I needed, and certain things (like culture awareness) just has to be learned while there to make it meaningful. I only wish that the information came more frequently, to keep me excited about the trip!

One piece of advice: BUGS SUCK! Our American bug spray with "deet" doesn’t work against these suckers. I highly recommend coconut oil.

The most typical day starts with an amazing fresh breakfast, full of fresh fruits, juices, eggs, and my personal favorite: FRY JACKS! Then off to Tykes Camp where we all have a little buddy to mentor in speech and language. We all also get to lead an activity with a co-leader. The activities are: fine motor, gross motor, story time, behavior regulation, basic concepts, and imaginative play.

Camp is over by 12, which means it’s lunchtime! Sometimes, we go out, and sometimes we are provided our own. Afterwards, we hop on our bus back to Monkey Bay (our housing) where we go up into the classroom to learn about a selected topic, for example oral mechanism exams. Finally, we have some free time (which we spend in the hammocks) until our 6 o’clock dinner.

Night time is usually free time; my group spent our time watching movies or playing a game called Spy. Sometimes, our team leader would schedule an activity such as karaoke or a night tour of the Belize Zoo. It’s off to bed now for another exciting day.

My biggest fear going into this program was if I was going to make friends with my fellow students. Honestly, I’m not sure if it’ll be this way with every group, but my group was just a giant family. We had separation anxiety from each other. We hated when we were told one half had to go one way and the other goes the opposite direction (we always got out of it). We currently still have a big group chat and a snapchat.

My favorite story from this trip was when we went to Santa Elena to do oral mechanism exams, speech, language, and hearing screenings. We walked in, and my friend came up to me and pointed at a little girl. She told me that she had seen the girl using American Sign Language with her mom.

I was the only person in the group who was a fluent signer, so I excitedly took her on. I performed all of my tests on her using only sign. We tested her hearing and learned that she was not completely deaf in her left ear, meaning she may be able to benefit from a hearing aid. Her mom had been told that she was profoundly deaf, but we showed her that was not the case. It was an amazing experience that I will never forget.

Working with Therapy Abroad has allowed for both professional and person growth. Working internationally in a country with very limited resources and a different disability framework shook some of the "truths" I had come to hold onto tightly. My perspectives on ability, intervention, and goals for the students I supported in Belize through Therapy Abroad did not always match up with the local families. It required me to set some of assumptions (and ego) aside in order to meet the needs of the population I was there to serve.

Those experiences in Belize generalized beautifully to the culturally and linguistically diverse students/families that I serve here in California as well. I've learned that partnership is not top down, but rather stepping alongside your partner as you move forward.

Last summer, I introduced an AAC Camp in Belize to support those students with the most sever and complex communication needs (CCN). To support this camp, I enrolled graduate students from SFSU who were studying to become AAC Specialists. The experience in Belize was for all of them their first flight of independence in working with students who had CCN outside of a highly structured and well financed university clinic.

The feedback I received from that group was overwhelmingly positive. They felt the had learned more in those two weeks on how to be an AAC Specialist than they had throughout their graduate school specialization. More importantly, their confidence grew tremendously as they saw the impact they could make on a child's life through AAC intervention. Putting theoretical knowledge to work is an exciting experience.

Therapy Abroad is looking to expand into Thailand. I have spent a lot of time in Thailand and more broadly the South-East Asian region. With a couple of volunteer exceptions, I have mostly played the role of "tourist", and have minimally given back to the communities that have given so much to enrich my own life. I would dearly love to give back to the local people and those most vulnerable in that region.

I am very proud that I work for a company that is interested in developing local partnerships with the intent of helping countries develop their own experts in the field rather than being dependent on an outside foreign organization. We do not go into the countries to "save" people, but rather to share resources and build up local capacity.

Honest discourse and transparency in all parts of the organization. Those two factors are needed for all team members and for local communities to build trust and healthy relationships amongst each other. Therapy Abroad members are under different layers of pressure, as we need to ensure a positive leaning experience for our university students who are dedicating two weeks to gain international experience, in addition to meeting the needs of the local population. Transparency and honest discourse are the elements that allow for this to occur.