2016. Wow!

What at BIG YEAR! This has been the most transformational year since GSP was founded in 2012. Looking back, we can hardly believe so much has been packed into the last 12 months. 

GSP continued offering custom trips for businesses and schools throughout the USA. We continue to nurture lasting relationships with the organizations we work with in the US and Belize. Our partnerships are what binds us, and makes us like no other service based program. 

In addition to the voyages we lead as an organization, we also had a successful inaugural year with Global Leadership Adventures.
Providing the programming, as well as the International Director oversight, we are already planning for expansion and more GLA adventures in 2017.

We made it through awesome growth, new contracts, and even Hurricane Earl with great memories and good times behind us! All of this is fueled by the people we work with in the rural villages of Belize and we can't wait to get back there. We have LOTS of opportunities to get involved, so make 2017 your year to join us.

Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday

American culture. Love it or hate it, it's a thing. Across the USA we celebrated Thanksgiving last week with friends, family and loved ones. Often times we connect with people we haven't seen for a while and hopefully let stresses and conflicts lie dormant. 

Then the madness begins. Even before the turkey is out of the oven, stores are screaming for sales. With the holidays fast approaching, it has become an American tradition to grab deals on things you need and want for a bargain. Some love the rush of the sales, some detest it. And each year it keeps growing. These days make me think of the guests around the holiday dinner table. First, Black Friday is your loud, outrageous, energetic aunt. Cyber Monday your geeky cousin that knows all about the latest and greatest gadgets out this year. And then there's us. We are Giving Tuesday, your globally minded sister, getting out there to change the world. She's got a heart of gold, and pennies in her pocket. Would you like to see a couple of pictures from the last trip to Belize? 

This morning we were reminded by a dear friend that sometimes our work as a grassroots small business has a quiet voice. 

He wrote,

"I've been getting emails all day from big dumb nonprofits who do things I don't care about (mostly climbing-related), and it got me thinking about the most beautiful and inspiring women I know who are doing the coolest things without asking for anyone's recognition of their amazing work.

Can you point me in the direction of a donation page?"

Wow, we are blushing. And the answer is YES! 

Global Service Partnerships has a foundation that allows supporters to put their money where their heart is. 
Donations are gladly accepted on the Our Foundation page of the website. You can find it under the "Get Involved" tab.

We are truly grateful for our supporters and friends. We aren't always the loudest about our work, but we aren't afraid to ask when prompted. Like mom always used to say, "If you don't ask, you'll never know." I'm pretty sure I heard that around the dinner table.

Donations gladly accepted any day of the week, 

including Tuesdays. 

The Book of Life

It is widely accepted that international travel is valuable. At the turn of the 5th century, St Augustine of Hippo is quoted to have said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”

We embrace educational travel on all levels. Additionally, Global Service Partnerships voyages are one of a kind. While we are committed to the value of promoting the mind opening experiences that international travel brings, we believe in taking it a step further. We create sustainable partnerships, and return to the same communities while maintaining sensitivity to uplift and not become an overbearing presence in the villages where we work.

Listening to and working directly with local educators, principals and village leaders is our approach to curriculum planning and how we implement our program. Our participants get to immerse themselves in local culture and delve deeper than those visiting the country for its natural beauty and gorgeous ocean reef. The best of both worlds.

We hope you will join us on a voyage to Belize in 2017. Check out the “get involved” tab on our website for details. Let’s take in as much of the book of life as we can!

Ethical Service, By Lauren D'Agostino

Meet Lauren, GSP Mentor 2015-2016
Thoughts on our program, and how we are getting international service right!

 The world of international volunteering is deeply fulfilling but also fraught with ethical dilemmas. To go to another country with little knowledge about that place and assuming that the privilege of being American is enough of a qualification to affect real change is a mentality that can lead to service work that, at best, doesn’t hurt the community it serves. To have the opportunity and means to travel is a gift. Wanting to use that gift in a way that you believe is beneficial to others is spectacular. But just because you want to do something good doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. In order to understand this responsibility, one must first understand the fact that their ability to travel is in fact a form of power. If you direct your economic and cultural influence towards a organization dedicated to changing conditions in the country you are traveling to, you are supporting that organization and its effects.

This is an example of a place founded by a Belizean educator and supported by many foreign volunteers.
A great partnership. 

In a group of 20 volunteers, few, if any, are well versed in the nuances of Belizean culture. It would be very difficult to run a volunteer program where intimate cultural understanding was a prerequisite for participation. But without cultural understanding, how do we actually help a community? If our group were to come to a school and tell students what their community needs, it creates a power dynamic. We -the members of a wealthy and influential nation- have come to fix things for them. But what if the community feels things don’t need to be fixed? What if what we as Americans see as a problem is actually inconsequential?
Before I left for Belize this summer, I seriously considered the implications of my participation, but I felt that the curriculum for this summer’s camp was one that dealt gracefully with my ethical frustrations with international work. GSP focuses mainly on reinforcing skills needed to pass educational entrance exams and standardized tests. This summer, the curriculum focused on reinforcing those skills through empowerment activities.

Students at St Matthew's Government School Summer Day Camp, July 2016

By running a program where Belizean students are encouraged to explore their power to affect change in their communities, we are imparting one crucial fact on them-they hold the power to affect change. Our summer camp was developed because teachers expressed a need for more one on one time with students. Because they have so many children in their classrooms, many teachers felt that their students would benefit from more personal interactions with the people leading their classrooms. One on one time with students creates a space to understand each student educationally and personally. We talked about different learning styles and challenged students to self reflection through art, music and story writing. It was painful at times, and in two weeks, our students did not all transform into self-confident community leaders. But paired with GSP’s long term model, an empowerment based curriculum has the potential to impart the only thing that matters in the struggle for a safer and kinder world-that those who know their community are the ones who know what it best for it. I can honestly say that I was proud to be part of a group that understood that our power comes not from the fact we have free time or an interest in doing good, but that we have the opportunity to be tools for making others powerful.

Join the Crew!

Since 2012, GSP has curated more than excellent educational travel. Our programs are packed with exploration of cultures, global citizenship, and oneself. We connect people and facilitate long lasting impact and personal development. It’s all about the people we work with day in and day out. Inspired by our proximity to the Caribbean Sea, we adopted the titles of a maritime crew.

Voyagers, Isa & Nikos leading at St Joseph's School

Introducing the Global Service Partnership Voyage Crew

Quartermasters - Creative. Proactive. Global Leaders.
Adult leaders who recruit participants, promote, and attend GSP Voyages in a leadership role.  

Mates - Driven. Committed. Experienced.
Returning voyagers of any age. Participants that have traveled with us on a previous trip and “know the ropes”.

Voyagers - Curious. Adventurous. Motivated.
First time program participants of any age.

Voyage Master - Emily Williams, Director of Education and Youth Leadership

The Captain - Kelli Soll, Founder and Director of GSP

We are enrolling for 2017 programs now,
and beginning to chart out the 2018 calendar.

Join our crew, plan a voyage, make it happen!
Click here for 2017 Voyage Registration.

The Crew - 2016 August Leadership Team 

Reflection, by Erik Eisele

It’s been two months since I left Belize.

Two months. Two full moons. Two cell phone bills. It seems like a decade ago.

Erik, embracing the "Go Slow" lifestyle

Here in New England the leaves are changing. There is a bite in the air each morning. The ocean looks grey, no longer warm and inviting.

In Belize, however, it’s still summer, or at least some version of it. It is that season where shoes and shirts are optional. The salt air along the coast hangs thick and fans are mandatory for sleeping. It’s always that season in Belize, a perpetual Caribbean waltz where “Go slow” is more than a suggestion. It’s a way of life.

In the Cayo District 100 students are cracking their books. They have names like Chris and Karen and Joshua. They are wearing uniforms, pouring over worksheets, sitting at attention while the teacher talks and then goofing behind her back each time she turns. They are laughing, smiling, passing notes, switching from English to Spanish to Creol as comfortable as dancers, a veritable language cacophony.

And if you listen close each time they switch to English you might notice something: their mastery has grown stronger. They use the language with a slice more confidence than last year, something over the summer made it build, thicken. They are learning to wield it rather than being driven by it. They don’t just know English, they are becoming English speakers.

What happened?

Us. We happened. Me and 30 other volunteers ages 14 to 40 spent two weeks sweating through the Belizean summer to get these 100 Belizean students talking that way. For that time they were sitting at attention for us, and then of course goofing behind our backs. They learned our language and our names, played our games and sang our songs. They made us laugh, and when we left made us cry.

That was two months ago. Today sitting with my cup of hot apple cider in my kitchen watching the autumn wind pull leaves across the lawn it seems much further away than that. It seems like another lifetime, another world, a distant past.

But.

But there is always next summer. There is always another classroom, another 100 students. There is always a roomful of kids excited to sing songs and play.

But next time they won’t be strangers. They won't be students or kids. Next time I get to call them friends.

Erik joined us as a Mentor in 2016. He is a professional writer, sponsored athlete, and rope swing expert (obviously). He embodies global citizenship at its finest. Thank you Erik! 

You can read more of Erik's writing at erikeisele.com.

Open Enrollment Season for 2017

Almost daily I receive emails from various companies notifying me that it is "open enrollment" time for health insurance. (Well, almost.) 

More importantly, it's GSP Belize program enrollment season! 

We make open enrollment much less complicated than health care, but much like the insurance open enrollment season, GSP also mirrors the opportunity for enrolling and preparing for the adventures in the year ahead. We have a number of options available for our 2017 voyagers. We have custom trips planned for different school groups and professionals from Boise, Iowa, Arizona and more. We also have trips scheduled for March 24-April 1, June 2-10 and August 4-12 that are open enrollment. If you or someone you know would be interested in joining one of our leadership voyages in 2017, contact us now!

Click this link to see our program options.

Kelli & Emily enjoying a day of Mayan history 1st hand!

Kelli and I are eager to share the beauty of the people, cultures and geographical beauty of Belize with as many people as possible, so let's make it happen!

Character Development

We are feeling pretty great about the impact and empowerment we were able to foster in June and July, with the hard work of our amazing high school participants. This morning we reflected on just a handful of Belizean kids that we know made great strides personally and academically. One jr high aged student recently re-enrolled in school after dropping out last year because he said attending our summer camp made him realize he wanted to back to school! It doesn't get any better than that!

We were excited to get back to Boise and give credit where it is due. Kelli and I (Emily) had a great meeting this week with Jennifer Sengelmann, author of Meanings in Motion - character building Life Skills Cards.

These simple cards served as the foundation for our summer curriculum and we were able to implement character development into our program like never before. 

Character development is an interesting aspect of the human experience. Different than our natural abilities, personality types and strengths, good character is something that is available to everyone. In an age of color coded personality and DISC testing, it's refreshing to consider that each one of us are able to hone in on character traits that improve ourselves, our communities and the world as a whole - one person at a time. It's not something like being athletic, or musical, or artistic. It's something that doesn't require talent. Good character can be built through effort and self awareness, and that's what we are in business to do. 

Can you join us in 2017? Become a GSP Voyager! 

Wrapping Up a Literal Whirlwind

Our August GLA volunteers got more than they signed up for with Hurricane Earl roaring through Belize in the wee hours of the night on August 4, 2016. Our service at St. Joseph's School had been going great that week, and we got news of "tropical storm Earl" on August 2. Knowing the storm would impact the village, we cancelled our programming for the 4th and prepared for the storm. We relocated our group to San Ignacio to ride out the storm, allowing the Tropical Education Center, (TEC) where we were staying, to focus on the animals at the Belize Zoo while we safely sheltered at The Log Cab-Inn. The students were all in good spirits, and were completely flexible with fantastic attitudes about all the unknown.

The storm came through in the middle of the night so most students slept through it. The impact within our building was minimal. If you were awake, you could hear the wind but nothing could be seen since it was so dark outside.

In the morning we ventured out and were able to assess the damage around us. We could see trees uprooted and as we were able to travel back to the TEC, we could see the rivers were flooded, some roads blocked by debris and a number of roofs had ripped off of homes in the rural villages. Power was out and the country as a whole was catching its breath and not quite up and running. Our thoughts immediately went to our friends in the villages where we serve. We stopped by St. Joseph's school to find the roof ripped from one of our classroom buildings. Other buildings had additional roof damage and a classroom packed with extra desks had a gallon of paint that had opened and the wind splattered blue paint all over the entire classroom. There was a power line that had fallen but none of the power had been restored throughout the area.

We were lucky that the direction of the wind fell in our favor.

On Friday we returned to the school to resume our service day camp. Unsurprisingly, the attendance was low, so half of our student leaders taught the Belizean kids hoping to restore a sense of stability and normalcy to the day, while the other half worked on cleaning up and helping with minor repairs. A couple of our classrooms were still occupied as hurricane shelter rooms, so we consolidated into fewer classrooms which worked out fine considering our lower numbers at day camp.

It took a while to get Belize back up and running. Many programmatic changes needed to occur as the country slowly recovered from the storm. Belize is so rich in culture and interesting places to visit that we still were able to wrap up the final week of GLA service and excursions with all sorts of adventures. We stopped in for a personal encounter with the wildlife at the Iguana Conservation Project, enjoyed nature hikes and outdoor scavenger hunts. We visited citrus fields and the Mayan ruin site of Cahal Pech, and wrapped up the last weekend in Belize on the gorgeous island of Caye Caulker. There we enjoyed a full day snorkeling and were relieved to find the island in good shape after the storm.

Loving the Iguana Project!

Did you know that oranges are green?

The GLA session is wrapping up today. It's been a whirlwind of a summer in every way - both literally and figuratively. Stay tuned for more updates as we move into the fall season and get back to the flow of our school year programs. There is a lot on the horizon!

Cate and her reef buddy 

Here's to New Partnerships

In 2012 Global Service Partnerships was born. Since then we have established partnerships throughout Belize for enhancing education and cultural experiences for our participants internationally. This is our favorite part of the work we do! Today marks an important new partnership with St. Joseph's R.C. School in Cotton Tree Village. Our first day of summer camp was a total success!

This summer has been full of new partnerships - GLA and now Cotton Tree. These relationships sound so formal in a blog, but it's the people within the organizations that make everything so meaningful. Our volunteers, our local partners, and of course the children that attend the schools where we serve.

"Partnerships" is not just a word in our business name, these are the faces of our partners.

Ms Coleman, Principal of St. Joseph's RC School in Cotton Tree Village

Taylor, our underage cutie at camp

GLA volunteers Isa & Nicos leading their team on Day 1

Shy Smiles on the First Day of Cotton Tree Camp

RECESS!

August leadership team - Korissa, Kelli, Emily & Lauren at Cotton Tree

 

Donations for Mahogany Heights Village

In central Belize there are a number of worthy villages with locals working to make their communities stronger. That said, I've yet to meet a force as powerful and hardworking as Raquel, the community health worker and village leader in Mahogany Heights. Mahogany Heights Village has a long and complex story which would require much more than a blog post to summarize. The short of it is that the village is in what Raquel calls "an era of violence" right now. Unemployment + lack of education = lack of hope. Raquel and others in the village are working hard to redirect those that are struggling and she is doing her best to provide youth leadership programs and camps to keep kids and teens active.

Prepping our donations to drop off in Mahogany Heights Village

Raquel and the Mahogany Heights Health Clinic

Today we dropped of a load of donations for Raquel to distribute throughout the village - soap, hygiene products, games and really cool shoes.

The Shoe That Grows donated a bag full of shoes that we were lucky enough to give out today. Raquel's son was all smiles with the idea that he too could get a pair of these shoes that his mom will be giving out at her children's camp this week.

The Shoe That Grows!

Our GLA Belize August session participants arrive today, so the first couple of girls, along with our GSP staff were able to join us for the donation run and there were smiles all around for the donation stop. What a great way to start our August program! 

ZOOM! That flew by!

It's 9:00pm. The first GLA Belize group is packing up and we are headed to the airport to check them in tomorrow morning at 8:00am. 26 students, 21 days and countless memories.

Tonight we had our final round of an activity we call "Highs, Lows & Heroes". Each night we reflect on the day, but tonight it was a look back at the past three weeks as a whole. We heard about lows from the trip such as "the bug bites", "sunburns" and most often "leaving the kids at St. Matthew's". Our heroes were each other. This group has unified and is seamless. They support each other, celebrate each other, and dance endlessly. Their hearts have been ALL IN!

We enjoyed an afternoon at the Belize Zoo

Afternoon cooking class

Jahad and his little amigos. He got the "Most Fun at Recess" award.

We didn't stop with service in the classroom! Inside AND out!

Keeping with GSP tradition, we ended our service trip with a weekend to relax and explore on Caye Caulker. Everything was so, so good.

Make Summer Matter!

Our summer camp at St. Matthew's started today! "Be Flexible" was our mantra going into the day. We weren't sure how many kids would be there. Also, since it's been a month since school was out for the year, we knew that many families would likely need a reminder. We began the day playing soccer and jumping rope as we waited for the kids to trickle in. By 9:45 we had over 70 kids ready to roll. We were able to fill five classrooms with kids ranging in age from 5 to 13. We have 5-8 GLA volunteers teaching the classes. Our theme for the session is "Make Summer Matter" and we are aiming to promote youth leadership and community activism, while strengthening reading and writing skills. By next week they will have completed a book focusing on Life Skills and taking action. We can't wait to see what they come up with!

Ismael and his new students

Recess!

All smiles from this little guy.

Day 1 = SUCCESS!

Setting Up for Service at School

This morning our students were busy lesson planning and getting ready to teach their classes beginning tomorrow morning at 9:00 am.

After lunch we bused everyone over to the school where we will be working - St. Matthew's Government School. We broke up into two groups and while one group set up their classrooms, the other met with the local Peace Corp volunteer from St Matthew's Village. He gave them additional information about the area and also showed them a bit of the village and some of the houses. Then we rotated the groups, so everyone had a chance to set up and also meet with Chase for the village tour.

St. Matthew's Village

Village Water Well

The school was in a bit of disarray because a few of the classrooms had been painted by a previous volunteer group, so all the chairs were in weird piles throughout the school. After an afternoon of rearranging, we are all set up for camp in the classrooms tomorrow. We will be teaching in 5 classrooms and will have to wait until tomorrow to see how many children from the local villages will come. We are hoping for a full house. We'll report back tomorrow so stay tuned.

The "before" picture. The classrooms look great now.

Our photo intern, Brooklyn took a lot of great shots today. Since we were prepping the school we took advantage of the camera not being a distraction. During lesson time we will have to be more discrete with the camera. We will post the photos we've taken thus far to our Facebook page. If you haven't followed our page, now's the time. We have all kinds of interesting things coming up!

The play field at St. Matthew's School

We finally got a group picture with all 26 GLA students! 

Cultural Excursion Day

Our three week GLA program is off to a really great start. We have 26 high school students from all over the USA who are completely immersed in this experience.

After a couple of days team building and outlining our future service projects, we took everyone out to San Ignacio today for the outdoor market.

We brought our lunch along with us and had a great picnic at a local park. The weather was hot and a little muggy today so the shade was a welcome treat. After we ate a number of the students took advantage of the playground to swing, climb and talk to local kids.

After lunch we embarked on our Mayan adventure, climbing the hill to Xunantunich. Our Mayan guides were fantastic and taught us all about the ancient civilizations and the sport of pok-ta-pok while we sat directly in the center of the ancient arena. Just before arriving in the arena we were able to see three or four howler monkeys in the trees above. Once we toured through the lower structures we began the assent to the top of El Castillo (the second tallest Mayan temple in Belize). As we climbed the temple we could hear the alpha male of the resident howler family calling out. We couldn't have scripted a better experience.

The view is spectacular - and a little exhilarating. 

The breeze is strong and the panoramic view, including the border of Belize and Guatemala, is breathtaking.