Loyola University Chicago

Trip Participants attending a Workshop at Kenya Methodist University

• The purpose of the Africa Immersion Program
• Description and Location
• Cost and Funding for the Trip
• Requirements for Participants and Criteria for Selection
• Application Forms

The purpose of the program

Loyola University Chicago has been sponsoring local, national, and international immersion trips for its students for the past 12 years. Witnessing the transformative effect that similar trips have had on the lives of our students, the Jesuit Community and the Office of Academic Affairs plan to make this kind of experience available to other members of the university community, to Loyola's faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees.

This two-week immersion trip to East Africa provides Loyola's faculty, staff, administrators and trustees with an opportunity to deepen and expand their commitment to justice through direct contact with the poor. It enhances our understanding of social suffering, and promotes the infusion of social justice issues into the culture and classrooms of the University. It further develops skills to create methods for the promotion of social justice on Loyola's campuses.

The program has three goals:

1. To contribute to the spiritual and intellectual development of Loyola's educational community (faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees)
2. To infuse a deeper recognition of social justice into the individual as well as into the culture and structures of the University, particularly into the teaching, research and service practices of the institution
3. To connect Loyola University to the issues of global justice in a creative way and develop mechanisms for a continuing and mutually beneficial relationship between Africa and Loyola.

Description and Location

• Click here to see an example of the schedule, from the Summer 2001 Africa Immersion Trip.

This trip combines:

• direct personal contact with the poor,
• in-depth social analysis of the economic, political and cultural aspects of African reality, and, finally,
• meetings with individuals and groups actively working for social change in East Africa.

Participants in this immersion trip will visit poverty-stricken and socially deprived areas of East Africa. They will also receive a detailed social analysis of the economic, political and cultural forces that shape the current conditions in Africa. Finally, members of the delegation will meet with individuals and local community groups that are creatively working for social change. The immersion experience will take place in three countries of East Africa: Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

One of the unique advantages of having the faculty-staff immersion trip take place in Africa is that Loyola University has a well-organized group of faculty and staff who are already actively connected to Africa. These members of the Loyola Community have been working with Global Alliance for Africa (a non-for-profit organization based in Chicago with an office in Arusha, Tanzania) and have established a formal partnership with that institution.

Global Alliance will arrange visits (among others) to: Kenya Methodist University, AIDS orphans programs in both urban and rural areas, a Jesuit initiative for the rehabilitation of young women at risk, a family living on the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, and a visit to one of the most exciting game parks in Africa.
We will explore issues related to social justice, meet some of the poorest of the poor, and try to familiarize ourselves and understand local responses to issues such as poverty, the AIDS crisis, and more. You will also be able to meet with educators, health care workers, and community leaders, and discover for yourself the distress and the grandeur of East Africa.

It is also hoped that this experience will develop into expanded networks of solidarity, both here in Chicago and with Africa.

Cost and Funding for the Trip

The opportunity to participate in this two- week immersion experience has been provided for and partially funded by both the Jesuit Community and the Office of Academic Affairs/Loyola University Chicago. The total cost of the trip is $3,500.00. Each participant, however, will be required to pay only $1,000.00, plus incidental expenses, to help cover the cost of the trip.

Incidental expenses include visas, travel immunizations & insurance, tipping & gifts.

Joe Reaves, from Loyola University Chicago Career Center,
with orphans in a Global Alliance for Africa program
near Nairobi, Kenya

Criteria for Participant Selection

Faculty, staff, administrators and trustees' inclusion on the trip will be based on a short proposal stating how the trip connects with their past or present involvements and how they would intend to incorporate the African experience into their work upon return to Loyola.
Participants clearly commit not only to the trip itself, but also to orientation meetings leading up to the trip and to the follow-up action after the trip. All the participants will be expected to demonstrate how this experience will enrich or enhance their formation work with the educational community at Loyola University. (For example, faculty will be asked to integrate the African experience into a syllabus.)

Requirements:

1. Participants must be full-time faculty, staff, administrators, or trustees of the university.
2. Participants should be willing to incorporate their immersion experience into their teaching, research, work or administration at the university.
3. Participants should show a significant interest in issues of social justice.
4. Participants will exhibit a commitment to use their immersion experience as part of an ongoing contribution to the life of the university.

Acceptance in the program requires:

• submitting a completed application form
• attending an interview with the selection committee if selected as a finalist
• participating in three mandatory pre-trip meetings
• participating in the reflection process during the trip
• taking an active part in the follow-up process after returning

Sponsors:

Loyola University Chicago
Jesuit Community at Loyola
Global Alliance for Africa