Business Immersion : El Salvador
An Uncommon Experience for the Common Good
Purpose:
As a Jesuit institution, Santa Clara University seeks to educate the whole person, and that means more than simply attending to students’ intellect. In the words of Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, “Students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively”. It is one thing for students to learn about this world in the classroom, and it is another thing for students to actually go out and discover it.
The El Salvador Business Immersion Program provides students with an opportunity to actively engage themselves in their education, broaden their understanding of the world they live in, and synthesize their business education with the Jesuit values of competence, conscious and compassion. This program allows students to immerse themselves in the lives of the Salvadoran people, meet with various members of the Salvadoran community, and engage in a dialogue with professors and fellow business students about the business implications of their experience. The goal of such a dialogue will be to help students connect the immersion experience with their business education, and show them how business can be a powerful tool to elicit change in our world.
What is an immersion trip?
Immersion trips are opportunities for students to spend their breaks in poor and rural communities living alongside the people and learning from their stories. It is one thing for students to learn about this world in the classroom, and it is another thing for students to actually go out and discover it. These immersion experiences, and the profound reflection to which they naturally give rise, are privileged moments of vocational discernment during which participants are uniquely invited to consider their place in the world.
El Salvador Immersion Course:
Participants of this trip will take a 2-unit course during the winter quarter prior to the immersion trip. The lecture series will be led by the faculty director and student leaders of the program, and include guest lecturers introducing students to the topics of Salvadoran history, politics, economics, culture and other relevant issues to prepare participants for their time in El Salvador.
Time in El Salvador:
Participants of this trip will spend their one week spring break in El Salvador. During this time, they will spend 2 nights living with families in a poor and rural community to experience understand the struggles and challenges that they face. After this experience in the village, participants return to the capital city of San Salvador for the rest of the week. Here participants engage in a dialogue with community members representing various organizations in the fields of politics, economics, the business sector, microfinance, social service, artisans and education. Participants also participate in reflections with each other to understand better the meaning, implications, and discuss the questions that arise through the experience.
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