Posted By: Career Enrichment Network

Photo and content contributed by Alex Riviere, majoring in Economics, and minoring in Civic and Community Engagement, who took an embedded course last year, which included a travel component to Kenya.                    

Read more about Alex’s experience below.

For two weeks this summer 2016 I participated in the Community and Environmental Development (CED 499a) trip to the Children and Youth Empowerment Center (CYEC) in Nyeri, Kenya. In response to the dramatic “youth bulge” in the mid-2000s, the Kenyan government started to fund youth centers in areas where there were high densities of street children. The CYEC was started like this and is funded by a non-profit in the United States and the Kenyan Government. The center provides food, water, shelter, education and health services to 130 street youth in and around the Nyeri area. In addition, there is a microfinance program where they give small loans to some of the older kids to start businesses.

Throughout this semester, our class was in communication with the director of the CYEC. He gave us a few development initiatives that would improve conditions around the center. I was put in charge of helping conduct business development workshops as well as implementing a record keeping system with the goat and cow milk that the center produces.

I’d really like to be involved in international development in the future. There is a lot of potential that is hindered by lack of basic necessities and opportunities in developing worlds. This program was a great way to get see those obstructions firsthand, learn about a new culture and make some great friends.

I’d like to thank the College of the Liberal Arts for supporting me. It is a true privilege to be involved in a college that not only pushes its students to go engage in experiences abroad but also helps those experiences happen.

Academically, it was very interesting to apply the theory I learn in my Community and Environmental Development (CED) classes. We learn about how to approach a development project. A lot of development initiatives fail because NGOs don’t listen to the people they are trying to help. At the end of the day, they have lived there for their whole lives and understand the systems and culture much better than we ever will. So during our project, instead of doing things for people we worked with them to co-create and co-implement projects together.

Learn more about the embedded courses that are being offered by the College of the Liberal Arts this Spring.  All Liberal Arts students are eligible to apply for enrichment funding to help support them with their global experience. You can also schedule an appointment with Jackie Smith (jds54@psu.edu ), Global Experiences Coordinator on Network Symplicity.