Students Busy with Health Programs, Other Projects in Belize

University of Arkansas students lead preschoolers in Belize in an exercise class.

U of A students help Belize students plant a garden to grow vegetables and herbs.

U of A students conducted workshops at a senior center called HelpAGE.

U of A students help adolescent girls decorate tote bags.

The girls taking part in an empowerment and respect workshop show off their tote bags.

University of Arkansas students working on health-related projects in Dangriga, Belize, have taught preschoolers about personal hygiene and exercise, planted a garden with elementary students to grow vegetables and herbs for the school kitchen and conducted an "empowerment and respect" workshop for adolescent girls.

Students in the group are working with community partners in the Caribbean nation including ministry of health officials, health-care professionals, women's groups and local related organizations. Workshop topics include diabetes and hypertension, sexually transmitted infections and HIV/AIDS, healthy sexual relationships and nutrition for prevention and management of diseases.

The Gulisi Garifuna Primary School in Dangriga has 4 acres of land officials wanted to turn into a garden that will support the feeding program at the school and perhaps produce enough to sell or to send home with the children whose families need it most.

The annual summer project in Belize brings University of Arkansas students from many majors on campus together to work on interdisciplinary serve projects related to agriculture, business, community health, ecology, engineering and literacy.

For example, the majors of the 16 students working on the health team are community health promotion and exercise science in the College of Education and Health Professions, nutrition and biological engineering in the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences, and biology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

The University of Arkansas started the Belize project in 2006 in partnership with Peacework Inc., an organization that facilitates international development projects around the world. The College of Engineering and the Sam M. Walton College of Business also has students working on projects during the three-week trip that is one of 23 faculty-led study abroad programs being offered this summer by the Office of Study Abroad and International Exchange.

Jean Henry and Bart Hammig, associate professors of community health promotion, are leading the health team. Henry said the group is also working with a senior center called HelpAGE, conducting workshops and craft sessions and painting the outside of the building.

"The health students are also conducting daily drop-in health screening clinics, shadowing at the local hospital, assisting with rural health teams, and assisting with hospice and palliative care," Henry said.

Other students on the Belize trip are working on projects that include replacing a failing concrete bridge with culverts or a new bridge the student engineering team will build, designing and constructing a small tourism booth or building for Dangriga, and tutoring children and adults in literacy programs. Projects of the business team may include microfinance lending in which students create and analyze business plans for Belize small businesses requesting loans; business and economic literacy in which team members go into primary and middle school classrooms to teach children basic economic and business concepts; tourism projects; women's cooperative support, in which university students work with a local group to support their vision to manufacture products and use the revenue to improve the lives of Belizean families; and park development, in which team members help to build or improve a local park.

The students and faculty are scheduled to return from Belize on June 9.