Alt Breaks Support for Student Organizations
Alternative Breaks Grant Recipients 2012-2013
Let us know about your student orgs alternative break trip!
Request and Advising Appointment
Several student organizations engage in alternative breaks to further their understanding of serious social issues through participant in community service. The Ginsberg Center provides $500 grants to 10-15 organizations every year in addition to advising, workshops and resources to help the groups prepare for their trip. Here's this year Alternative Break Greant recipients for 2012-2013:
Young Life, University of Michigan Chapter
Students from UM's Young Life chapter will be traveling to either North and South Carolina to work in cities or on Native American reservations and spending time outdoors.
Muslim Jewish Interfaith Alternative Spring Break (MuJew)
MuJew plans to bring Jewish and Muslim students together through service work. They plan to travel to Joplin, Missouri during Spring Break to help rebuild what was destroyed during the 2011 tornadoes, connect with both the intimate Muslim and Jewish communities and build friendships within the students. They meet bi-monthly and eventually weekly as it gets closer to their trip to build relationships.
Sa Nima Collaborative
Sa Nima will be traveling to Samox San Lucas, Guatemala- Casa Sito. This will be their 5th year returning to the community. They will be focusing on three different projects: Solar Lights, aiding in the construction of Lavamanos, hand-washing at the local elementary schools in Samox, and the education team will host an after school camp and English lessons for community members.
Humanity First
Humanity First will be engaging in a primary care medical mission trip to aid villagers with no health care in rural Guatemala. They will be taking 15-20 undergraduate students and will set up a mobile climin in elementary schools of three different villages, where they will aid a team of doctors in diagnosing and treating them. They will also be running a health education workshop
Alpha Epsilon Delta
Alpha Epsilon Delta, a honors pre-healthy society, will be sending 12 students to volunteer at God’s Love We Deliver in New York City. They will be involved in the cooking process and some participants will be involved in the kitchen preparation. They’re objectives including gaining a greater understanding of community, reflection, bonding and activism.
Multidisciplinary Organization of Cerebral Studies (MOCS)
MOCS will travel to Chicago, IL to work with Misericordia Heart of Mercy. They will be spending the week engaging with both the disabled individuals and their caregivers. This experience, MOCS hopes to reinforce their members decisions to pursue careers in healthcare and inspire new passions in field of neuroscience and psychological development.
Alternative Weekends (AW)
Alternative Weekends is a yearlong commitment by students to learning from and taking action with community organizations interested in advancing social justice. They focus on service projects in Michigan and surrounding states. Participants learn about and work with a particular community issue at one of the sites throughout the year. This year they will be partnering with Center for the Homeless in South Bend, IN and Christ Child House, in Detroit, MI.
Youth Hope Organization (YHO)
YHO will send students to Atlanta on a week long service project working mainly with refugee children at the International Community School, a A K-6 Charter and IB world school for refugee children and Refugee Family Services. Their goal is to provide relationships beyond their classroom mentors. Their teams will be spilt up into different classrooms in order to help the many teachers and to get to know as many kids.
Legal Alternative Winter Breaks (LawBreaks)
LawBreaks has five different trips for students interested in immigration, criminal justice, international human rights, community development and native American law. The site locations include:
- Tucson, Arizona students will volunteer alongside immigrants’ rights advocates,
- No More Death and Florence Immigration Refugee Rights Project, New Orleans, Louisiana, they will volunteer with the Orleans Public Defenders, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana,
- Capital Appeals Project, Belize, students will work with nonprofits looking to reduce incidents of domestic violence and human rights in developing world,
- Detroit, Michigan,vstudents will work with local nonprofits to help rejuvenate the city and will gain experience with issues tied to poverty, economic and community development,
- and South Dakota or Western New Mexico Native American reservation focusing on native American law and have the change to watch tribal court proceedings and hear from variety of speakers who work focuses on Indian law, including civil rights.
National Society for Black Engineers (NSBE)
NSBE will be traveling to Chicago to work with the following schools: Whitney Young High School, Northside Prep High School, Kappa LINK, and Urban Prep by aiming to introduce engineering to high school students, model successful college students and to represent Michigan. They focus on different projects such as Turbine Project and Marshmallow project. Their goals is to facilitate the understanding and importance of global competency
Migrant and Immigrant Rights Advocacy (MIRA)
MIRA is partnering with Borderlinks in Tuscon, Arizona which includes series of immersion visits to the US-Mexico border. They will interact with “individuals and organizations that provide basic assistance to migrants, create community-based alternatives, [and] advocate for just policies. They will gain knowledge on details on the situations of these people aiming to immigrate to the United States along with interacting with different U.S. government agency deals with immigrant situations.
Medical Educational Service Opportunities (MESO)
They are partnering with a company called Medical Professions to help partner with local churches and schools to host their free medical clinics. This year they are sending about 45 students to Panama to participate in free community medical clinics in both rural and urban cities. The students will work alongside doctors, pharmacists and translators and help provide free medical care.
BLI/PILOT
BLI is partnering with the student organization PILOT and is planning on traveling to Beirut, Lebanon to partner with a large orphanage. Their alternative spring break will focus on the needs of the influx of orphans in the Middle East and ideally build a playground for the children, cook them traditional and healthy Arabic foods, fundraise for toys and books and additionally provide these orphans a week of learning experiences.
Is your organization going on an alternative break in the spring, summer, fall or winter? Let us know! Click here to tell us about your trip and gain access to resources!
