May 2015 Brigade to PANAMA |
We will be taking a brigade to Panama in May. The brigade will be 7 days long, 2 travel days and 5 days in the community.
Cost $1520
The brigade cost will consist of a $890 program fee and $630 for airfare. The program fee goes to paying for everything in country, 3 meals a day, lodging, transportation etc. Your academic college will most likely be willing to provide you with $300 to $500 towards this cost, and in the past we have received ~$300 from UPAC. This year we also plan on increasing our fundraising efforts, with several opportunities for you to raise money throughout the year.
TravelWe will depart on Saturday May 16 and return Saturday May 22. We will plan travel arrangements to get everyone to the Newark airport,and Global Brigades in country staff will meet us at the Panamanian airport. If you have no prior experience traveling outside of the country don't let that discourage you, traveling with a group like this is a great way to gain experience without any risk.
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Where exactly do we go?
We travel o Eastern Panama. We work in rural areas, but the closest town is Meteti.
Lodging/Food
During our time in Panama we will stay in a bunkhouse style lodging facility. We will be served a hot breakfast and dinner, and take a packed lunch with us every day. The food in Panama is great, lots of rice, chicken, and beans. Fresh fruit is always served with breakfast and is the ripest fruit you will ever eat.
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Requirements
We do not have any requirements for people who want to go on the brigade in terms of major or speaking Spanish. The only requirement is that you make an effort to show up to our Pre-Brigade meetings, and do so with an open mind. On the trip itself you will need to be flexible, nothing seems to go as planned when traveling abroad. If there are changes to the itinerary just go with the flow.
In-Country Experience
There are five core in-country days on the brigade. Two of these days have a cultural focus, while three of then have a program based focus. During cultural focus days we will visit families in their homes to learn about their culture and livelihoods.There will also be a cultural arts and crafts fair and dancing ceremony on the last day. During Program focused days we will implement out project (we don't know at this point exactly what we will be doing since we are part of a larger process), and hold educational workshops. The project will either be implementing part of the agroforestry permaculture project, or developing a waste management solution.The educational workshops will be part of an ongoing curriculum being presented to the communities to educate them about sustainable agricultural practices and waste management techniques.
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