A DAY IN THE LIFE OF AN ALTERNATIVE BREAK PARTICIPANT
Grounding Framework
The Alternative Breaks program utilizes the Triangle of Quality Community Engagement to guide each day.
We strive to incorporate education, reflection, community engagement, community building, and personal self-care time every day. Daily activities are tailored to focus on individual break themes (hunger & food, housing , education, health, etc.). While tourism is not the focus of Alternative Breaks, we'll also include pockets of time to explore because we believe this is a valuable way to understand the culture and provide context for community engagement work in that city.
Read below to understand each specific activity.
INTEGRAL DAILY ACTIVITIES
Education
We engage in 1 hour of education everyday. This adds substance/meaning to an issue-specific engagement by:
- Providing participants with the historical, political, social, and cultural context of their break theme.
- Providing facts and opinions from all perspectives on the break theme.
Education can look like listening to podcasts, reading articles, watching documentaries, and community partner or site leader/staff partner presentations.
Reflection
We engage in 45 min. - 1 hour of reflection a day. Reflection is the process of deriving meaning, understanding, and commitment from working with communities and education.
Our reflection model follows the 4 C's
- Continuous - ongoing (before, during, and after CE & Ed)
- Connected – links community & education, bridges the abstract and the concrete
- Challenging - can be uncomfortable to explore
- Contextualized - meaningful to AB theme
Community Engagement
You will work with 1-2 community partners everyday (except for driving days). We strive for strong, direct engagement. Incorporating more than service/volunteering and including projects and activities determined by community partners to support their missions.
We do not approach engagement from a defecit based persepctive but rather work to leverage community assets to address needs. Always striving to work through the lens of the community and in collaboration with partners.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES
Community Building
Building community among participants is an important part of the Alternative Breaks experience! During the break, you can expect to participate in activites that help you get to know your group and build community!
Self-Care
Addressing community needs can be physically and mentally draining. You will be discussing important and sometimes personal topics, so we want to make sure you have time to decompress. You will have 45 min. - 1 hour per day to yourself. Make sure you pack what you normally use to destress (journal, tea, facemask, etc.)
City Exploring
While the focus of Alternative Breaks is community engagement you will also have some time to explore the city you are visiting. This looks slightly different for every break. For more details, ask your site leader!
MISCELLANEOUS ACTIVITIES
Meal Prep/Clean-up
Most meals during Alternative Breaks are prepared by the group in kitchen of your Airbnb. Preparing our own meals allows us to keep costs down for participants. You and other group members will be assigned meals you to prepare and clean-up after. You can generally expect to prepare and clean-up one meal a day.
Transportation
We transport each group via car to their location. We rely on students to drive university issued mini-van's to do so. Students must complete an online training and fill out the Bennion Center's Driver Decalaration to be eligible to drive. Students must follow university and local driving rules and regulations.
Lodging
You will lodge in an Airbnb for the duration of your trip. We book an entire house to accomodate 12 group members. Most Airbnb's have 6-10 beds, so some participants will sleep on an airmattress provided by the Bennion Center. You should be prepared to share spaces and rooms with other participants.
