Transformational experiences like this one lead our students to live with integrity and serve humanity! While studying Swahili in Zanzibar last month, the participants on Whitworth’s semester-long Tanzania Study Program learned that community programming at the nearby American Corner had been affected by the U.S. foreign aid freeze. American Corner is a U.S.-Zanzibar collaborative space that’s jointly funded by the Zanzibari government and U.S. Embassy in Tanzania. While the space remains open, all of its programs, including English language clubs, have been cut.
“We [Associate Professor of Psychology Alisha Epps and I] along with our students volunteered to keep their canceled English conversation hours going for the month we were here,” Professor of Political Science Megan Hershey says. “Everyone had a wonderful time! The Zanzibari young people really appreciated the English practice (about 20 attended each day), and our students learned a lot about Zanzibari culture and made friends through the experience. It was especially helpful for our students – since they were studying Swahili, they had a lot of empathy for fellow language learners, and they were able to encourage and practice with one another in both languages. We learned a lot about how similar our cultures and experiences are.”
Worth a Look 