I participated in the faculty-led Community Development Program to Belize. Alongside an engineering professor and twelve other aspiring engineers I worked with and for the community of Dangriga, Belize on several engineering projects—picnic table building, two park concrete arches, and more— over the three-week period. Below are a few highlights from the trip.
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| A few of the engineering students collaborating and
improvising on the picnic table designs. (Pictured in the pink hat) |
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| One day all of the U of A groups joined some community kids
on a hike to local waterfalls where we cooled off and enjoyed the beauty of Belize. |
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| Courtney Hunter & me working on attaching the arms to
one of the six tables we built for local schools in Dangriga. |
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| Smiling, Brittany Miller, Courtney Hunter, and me held on to
the picnic tables as we drove to different schools to deliver the tables. |
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| On our second weekend we went to San Ignacio where we
visited ancient Myan Ruins at Xunantunich (Stone Lady) Park. |
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| Arms open, I welcome the weekend where we spent our time in
Caye Caulker snorkeling and enjoying the ocean breeze. |
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| Gaggled together, we worked on the column forms for one of our arches. We had to be flexible and improvise with the materials available to create fluting on the columns. |
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| Being handed I knife, I prepare
to tear the form off our concrete column at Alejo Beni Park. We had to let the the concrete set for a few days before removing the forms. |
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| On the last day in Dangriga the U of A hosted
Community Day, where students from local schools joined us at Alejo Beni Park
for various activities representing each group from the U of A. The engineering team is pictured above. |
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One of the engineering team’s
activities was toothpick and marshmallow craft challenging the kids to use
creativity to build some sort of structure out of the given materials. We had
an additional stand where we created blocks for the kids to puzzle together to
create a standing arch, incorporating what we had created at the park.
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Learn more about the U of A Community Development in Belize summer program at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/belize
Search for study abroad opportunities like these in over 50 other countries: http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search
