Global Service Learning: Trinidad

This program is designed for students with an interest in consulting and non-profit management who are seeking a hands-on, project-based experience that will allow you to develop professional skills while benefitting a global community partner. In Trinidad and Tobago, we work with Nature Seekers, who are focused on developing the local economy while preserving and strengthening the community and natural environment. You'll be enrolled in a three-credit course and spend the week of spring break in Matura and Port-of-Spain working directly with Nature Seekers. To get a better idea of the program and past projects, be sure to check out past participants' blogs here!

The Global Service Learning program gives you the opportunity to use your business skills to make a difference in Matura, Trinidad and Tobago. This hands-on, semester-long project will give you initial exposure to consulting work, as well as exposure to the environment of an international non-profit organization. You will be pushed to put your business knowledge to the test and gain new skills in order to help meet the needs of the local community. To be successful, you must be flexible, open, patient, hard-working, and able to handle yourself professionally in delicate community situations.

About our community partner: Nature Seekers was founded in 1990 with the purpose to conserve leatherback sea turtle populations. Throughout the years, the organization has expanded this focus to also work towards economic and sustainable development for the Matura community. As such, in addition to conservation activities, they also do eco-tourism and manage a recycled craft and jewelry project in collaboration with local community artisans.

As a participant on this program, you will receive an automatic $3500 scholarship (see Pricing and Dates section for details).

What You'll Accomplish:

As an engaged and active participant in this program, you will have the opportunity to develop:

global experience in effective project management through active community engagement
the ability to apply business skills that make a difference in the community through a non-profit consulting project
an understanding of the impact of service-learning on leadership and global competence

Trinidad and Tobago are two islands that make up this Caribbean nation. Trinidad and Tobago shares marine borders with Barbados, Grenada, Guyana, and Venezuela and became a republic in 1976 after gaining independence from Great Britain. The official country language is English, and a majority of the country’s GDP comes from its petroleum and petrochemical reserves, making it one of the wealthiest and most developed countries in the Caribbean when considering the total population.

The program will start in Port of Spain, the capital city on Trinidad Island and an important historical, administrative, retail, and financial hub. Port of Spain provides many opportunities for students to better understand the government oversight and support of the economy as well as how the urban environment and urban businesses affect rural areas.

The program will primarily take place in Matura, a small town on the east coast of Trinidad Island. Matura is known for its beautiful beaches, lush forests, and charming coastal villages. This natural beauty lends itself perfectly to the ecotourism industry, boasting many waterfalls, waterways, and greenery to explore.

Where You'll Live:

Details about your stay in Matura will be shared at a later date. The accommodations are equipped with all the necessities (running water, toilets, etc.), but you should be prepared for and open to the concept of much simpler and more rustic accommodations than would be expected at home.

You may expect your housing to include:

Double, triple, or quad rooms with 2-4 students per room
Shared bathrooms
Bed linens and mosquito nets included
All meals included
Not included are towels, toiletries, wifi, and air conditioning.

You will stay in a hotel in Port of Spain, which is tentatively the Samise Villa hotel. Rooms are double, triple, or quads with shared bathrooms. Towels, bed linens, toiletries, wifi, and air conditioning are included.

We do our best to provide the most accurate information about housing and amenities but due to the nature of the locations in which we offer programs and limited availability, these items are subject to change. Contact your program manager with any questions.

What You'll Study:

You will earn three credits for the program through 'BUS 1755 - Service Learning in Organizations'. The academic course will take place during the spring semester on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:30-1:45PM.

For Pitt Business students, this course fulfills a foreign culture requirement, a social sciences requirement, an elective towards the Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and the functional elective towards the Certificate Program in Leadership and Ethics, and the Projects in Global Management Capstone for Global Management majors.

Service Learning in Organizations (BUS1755)

This course explores service learning as a form of active learning that values critical thinking and problem solving. When service-learning is effectively implemented, students gain in measures of academic achievement, citizenship, and leadership competence. There are several components of the service learning (SL) approach:

SL uses community service as the vehicle for the attainment of students' academic goals and objectives.
Community service fills a need in the community through volunteer efforts. Service-learning also fills that need, but it uses that need as a foundation to examine ourselves, society, and the future. Further, service-learning provides students with opportunities to use newly acquired skills and knowledge in real-life situations.
SL identifies in advance and tracks specific learning objectives and goals.
Students perform a valuable, significant, and necessary service which has real consequence to a community, organization or other stakeholder group.
SL enhances student learning by joining theory with experience and thought with action; it also helps students to see the relevance of academic subject to the real world.
SL also builds leadership competence through practice, reflection and active engagement.

Upon completion of the course, students will have accomplished the following:

Developed an understanding of the concept of servant leadership and how it explains the inextricable link between ethics and effective leadership.
Studied the key characteristics of servant leadership and how they related to and impact both personal and business success.
Enhanced one's project management skills by working as part of a team on a servant leadership project.
Develop critical leadership skills such as conflict resolution, negotiations and high impact communication.
Applied course concepts to a relevant example in the service learning project, in which the teams work on a specific external project related to leadership, social responsibility, and ethics in business.
Applied course concepts using a case analysis, business plan, and/or presentation to a client.

Experiential Learning Description:

Service-learning is a great example of experiential learning. This course is a project-based, hands-on experience, and you should be prepared to utilize the consulting and transferrable skills discussed in class lectures toward your project deliverables during your time working in-country with the community organization. You will be supported by Pitt Business faculty, staff, and executives-in-residence throughout the experience.

The Global Service Learning program is a partnership between Pitt Business Global Experiences and our local non-profit partner, Amizade. You will be supported through the duration of the project by faculty and staff from Pitt Business, staff from Amizade, and members of the community organization you are working with. You'll be accompanied by a Pitt Business Global Experiences staff member for the in-country portion of the program.

Your Pitt Study Abroad Contacts:

Steph Spirk

Hola, hallo, hi! I'm Steph Spirk, and I am a Global Experiences Program Manager for Pitt Business. I am a yinzer, very proud to call Pittsburgh my home, yet my love for cultural exchange has always led me to new places, even ones I never thought I'd go to before. I was a Pitt student myself, becoming an expert on study abroad by participating in three programs: Global Service Learning in Bolivia, the International Internship Program in Madrid, and an exchange program at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. I speak fluent Spanish and German at an advanced level. In my free time you'll find me practicing yoga in the square, hiking through the many parks, painting, and capturing the beauty of Pittsburgh and beyond through the lens of my camera.
Looking forward to chatting with yinz!

E-mail:

stephspirk@pitt.edu

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Your In-Country Contacts:

Bryan Schultz

Greetings! I am the Director of Global Experiences at the University of Pittsburgh College of Business. I've been at Pitt since 2011 and during this time served in the Study Abroad Office, Swanson School of Engineering, Frederick Honors College and the College of Business Administration. My portfolio of responsibilities includes creating, executing and evaluating global and experiential opportunities for Pitt Business students. Prior to joining Pitt my career focused on providing executive-level leadership and consulting to nonprofit organizations in Colorado and Washington DC.
I graduated from Kalamazoo College (MI) with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and earned a Master of Nonprofit Management degree from Regis University (CO). During my free tine I enjoy long backpacking trips, following Detroit-based professional sports, painting, going to concerts, and exploring new places - especially those overseas.

E-mail:

bryanschultz@business.pitt.edu

Schedule an appointment

Email me at bryanschultz@business.pitt.edu to schedule an appointment.

Items Billed by Pitt
	In-State	Out-of-State
Program Fee	$5500	$5500
Study Abroad Fee	$0	$0
Total Billed by Pitt	$5500	$5500


Estimated Additional Out-of-Pocket Costs
Personal Expenses		$200


Total Estimated Program Cost
	In-State	Out-of-State
Items billed by Pitt and additional expenses	$5700	$5700
Scholarship award	$3500	$3500
Total Estimated Cost of Program	$2200	$2200

What's Included:

As a part of your program fee, the following are included:

Tuition
Round-trip flights from Pittsburgh-Trinidad, Trinidad-Pittsburgh
Housing
Cultural and project-related site visits
Transportation to and from all cultural and project-related site visits
Most meals
International health insurance

Remember that your lifestyle and spending choices can greatly affect the amount of money you'll need while abroad. Visit our Budgeting page for more information.

What Else You Need to Know:

All students are required to attend the mandatory Agreement Meeting. This afternoon long event will cover important topics relevant to study abroad like health, safety, security, and more. Plus, it will give you the chance to meet other students studying abroad on your programs. Alumni and staff will also be present to help you start thinking about your goals for the program. Your program manager will follow up with more information once you begin your application.

Students participating in the program will receive:

A $3,500 scholarship, bringing the program fee to $2000
All students are also eligible for other scholarships listed on globalexperiences.pitt.edu/scholarships aside from the Pitt Business Global Experiences scholarships, but additional scholarships are not guaranteed.