Despite a turbulent economy, AU’s Alternative Breaks program has continued to expand in both its number of trips and its number of applicants, according to Shoshanna Sumka, coordinator of Global and Community-Based Learning Community Service.
Alternative Breaks are trips planned through the AU Community Service Center aimed at furthering social causes around the country and world during AU’s winter, spring and summer breaks.
Despite the economic turmoil, Alternative Breaks has not visibly suffered, Sumka said.
“It’s really hard to tell,” she said. “I know from our recruitment numbers that there still is a very high level of interest for going on the trips. So we do have more numbers than last year of people applying for the trips.”
Over the past four years, interest among participants and leaders has continued to grow, Sumka said. However, she said the main reason people end up dropping out after applying for a trip is because they cannot afford it. Alternative Breaks works to avoid this problem by taking measures to make trips as reasonably priced as possible.
“We do have a little bit more money in our scholarship fund that we are able to give out as travel grants, and I think that’s helpful for people,” she said. “We try to have a balance of domestic trips versus international trips, [as] domestic trips are more affordable ... And any time we do a trip, we really try to make it as bare bones as possible. The main thing people are paying for is the airfare.”
AU students are selected as trip “leaders” after a rigorous application process, Sumka said. They plan everything: logistics, budget, recruiting, advertising and more. This year, there are 30 leaders running trips to 12 different locations — more than last year. Two new additions include a trip to Senegal this winter and one to India this summer.
Emily Phillips, a sophomore in the School of International Service and the Kogod School of Business, is leading a group to Guatemala. The trip has not been adversely affected by the economy, according to Phillips.
“In planning the trip, affordability is always important,” Phillips said in an e-mail. “Luckily, for the trip to Guatemala, the budget was not constrained significantly by the economy. This is because of the relatively low living expenses in the country and the strength of the U.S. dollar compared to the Guatemalan quetzal.”
Two other trip leaders, seniors Gabrielle Goudiaby and Megan Kelly, said they do not believe the economy has affected their budgets.
Karina Zannat, a sophomore in SIS and Kogod, said her trip to Bangladesh this winter was impacted by the unstable times.
“The airfare is pretty high,” Zannat said. “The participants are generally being financed by their parents who are very much affected by the economy, so [my co-leader] and I have tried exceptionally hard to subsidize and cut out as many costs as possible.”
To cut costs, the group will replace hotel rooms with homestays, she said.
“So the current economic crisis definitely made us think twice about cutting down costs as much as possible,” she said. “But at the end of the day, it still sums up to $2,250 per person.”
You can reach this staff writer at srudnick@theeagleonline.com.
