Skip to content

By sjm510

From my time here, I’ve realized there’s a lot that the Irish and Americans can learn from one another. To begin, the US could most certainly learn from Ireland’s advanced recycling system. I’m still amazed that plastic film, plastic bags, styrofoam, and more can all be recycled together here. My involvement with Green GW inspired me to get involved here with UCD’s Environmental Society, Eco Soc. Eco Soc is only a year old, possibly because there are already such good environmental practices in place and not as much demand for an advocacy group like there was at GW. Green GW is 9 years old in comparison. Eco Soc has some really strong goals in place such as to participate in the Green Campus Programme, which encourages a partnership approach to environmental education, management, and action in third level institutions. While brainstorming ideas of how to bring sustainability to campus, they were very receptive to hearing about what worked with Green GW, such as encouraging students to sell and trade used items, trashion show, online surveys, working with administrators, etc. I look forward to staying involved with this group and hopefully helping them to implement strategies that worked well at GW.

I also recently got involved with UCD’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders. I’ve been involved with EWB at GW for the past year and find the differences between the two chapters interesting. At GW, most of what EWB does is in preparation for our compost latrine project in El Salvador. At UCD, they hope to soon set up a similar project. For now, however, they are focused on hosting workshops and volunteering events as a way to get students interested in sustainable development. I participated in their 3D printing workshop as well as a workshop held by Concern Worldwide. I look forward to imparting some ideas that worked well at GW onto UCD’s chapter and continuing to learn from them as well.

Finally, I also participated in a “soup run” this past week where a group of UCD students got together and walked around the streets of Dublin, offering food and tea to the homeless. I’ve never participated in something like it before, but it was an eye opening experience. Towards the end of the night, most of the homeless we approached let us know that we were the fourth or fifth soup run that had come through just that night. I know similar organizations exist in the United States, but I think it’s yet another show of the friendly nature and kind heartedness of the Irish people to see 20+ students in just our group alone giving up three hours of their night nearly every night to help others.

I’m excited to keep learning from the Irish as well as share some ideas of my own from back home. It’s a really unique opportunity to experience first hand the differences in student organizations at the two schools and I’m lucky to be in a position where I can offer guidance both to UCD organizations based on what has worked well at GW and to once I return home, to GW organizations based on what worked well at UCD.

By practiceyogadistrict

I had been in Khon Kaen for less than a week, when Ajaan Dave, the program director, approached our class asking if anyone would be interested in covering a story about a community in Issan that was suffering from human rights violations as a result of a gas company’s activity in their community. The community had specifically reached out to CIEE asking for someone to come and bring light to their story. As a journalism major and a sustainability minor, I of course raised my hand along with a few other students in the program. It was in that moment that we were given the responsibility of being real advocates and telling a real story that actually impacted lives. This was no exercise in a classroom. This was real life.

We knew very little of the issue the community faced before we went to visit them. Before we left, we planned angles and wrote out a few questions that would be our springboard for the interview with a monk in the community, the community members, and the NGO. One half day of interviews and exchanges was all we had to work with. I was blown away during our exchange with the community by their tenacity in the face of a large corporation backed by the Thai Government. They were determined to have their voices heard and their plight known. Near the end of our time, they also asked our group what we knew about fracking, problems that have resulted from fracking, and how communities dealt with them in the US. The fact that we, mere college undergrads, became their primary source of knowledge on a subject that they were experiencing first hand astounded me. Not only was this community trusting my peers and I to tell their story, but they also saw us as an informant, useful to them. In all my years in the classroom, I have never had the privilege of such responsibility, like that which was handed to me in my first few days in Thailand. I am exited to see what other opportunities for advocacy are opened to me in the next few months.