ViviendasLeón

School Travel

ViviendasLeón offers unique global education program for school groups. What distinguishes our program is that students travel to León, Nicarague to work on rural development projects that are real and on-going. Through homestays and work on these projects alongside community members, students’ natural curiosity is engaged. They ask questions that don’t have easy answers; they make connections they haven’t before.

Language immersion, excursions to areas of natural beauty and historic importance, lasting relationships with host families and hard work on projects that change lives – all these elements of the ViviendasLeón school travel program allow students to develop both the critical understanding and compassion to become true global citizens.

School Programs:
7-15 DAYS during Winter, Spring and Summer

Core Elements:

Cultural Immersion: get to know life in Nicaragua through homestays and daily participation on a rural development project.
Homestays: program participants stay with families in the city of Leon, the educational and intellectual heart of Nicaragua. Our host families have consistently won our participants' respect and affection for the warmth of care they provide. Evenings are spent at home with family members, or going out as a group to attend panel discussions with Nicaraguan community leaders or simply to hear live music, dance, and eat in restaurants.
Language immersion: although the VL staff is fully bilingual, most Nicaraguans speak only Spanish
Diverse learning environments: in addition to the homestay and work site, students are exposed to: local arts including a vibrant live music scene; sites of international historical/archaeological importance; local experts in everything from indigenous story-telling to US-Nicaraguan relations; excursions to rainforests of exceptional biodiversity, volcanoes, and beaches; and Nicaraguans, urban and rural, of all ages
Time for reflection: what students see and experience in Nicaragua means there is a lot to process. We know this and build in both formal and informal opportunities for reflection.

Customization

Our School Travel program expands your classroom and strengthens your school's global education and/or community service learning program. We work with your faculty and administration to create a one or two-week program that has the focus you want—such as on stewardship of the environment, Latin American culture and Spanish language immersion, or peace and justice studies, etc. We can also work with your faculty to develop a pre- and post- trip activities to connect the trip to your curriculum.

While most of our school travel consists of 10-15 students and two school chaperones, we also have other school-based programs:

1) Family Trip:

The kind of learning that goes on during a VL trip is often life changing. Last year, we instituted the Family Travel Program that allows entire families to share this experience and learn together. A school-based family trip allows parents, students, and faculty to share a unique experience and thus strengthen the sense of community among members of the school but also the school's connection to the global community.

2)Touchstone Program

Our Touchstone Program is meant to be an annual experience that can serve as a rite of passage for your student leadership or an entire grade level. Touchstone programs help a school to distinguish itself as they are embodiments of the school's core values and identity. A VL Touchstone Program is no exception. We work with you to create an experience for your students that they will remember for years to come. Built around your school's values and goals, the Touchstone Program creates an on-going partnership between your school and a small community in Nicaragua. Like its other travel programs, the ViviendasLeon Touchstone Program combines travel, cross-cultural immersion and work on a development project. But because it is an annual project, the commitment and the benefits are deeper, for both the school and the Nicaraguan community. A VL touchstone experience will further your academic and co-curricular goals, reinforce the school's culture and strengthen the students' bond with one another and with the school itself in a profound and lasting way.

For all trips, ViviendasLeon arranges and manages all homestay and hotel accommodations, travel in Nicaragua, excursion, and meals.

Click here to contact Executive Director Evan Markiewicz about developing a trip for your school.

The benefits of working with ViviendasLeon

ViviendasLeon is unique as a school travel/global education partner for several reasons:

We have been doing this for over a decade and we have honed our curriculum so that we are meeting the learning and social-emotional needs of the students who participate in the program. Further, we have a proven track record regarding the safety of our participants.
Our work in Nicaragua is authentic. We do not have made-up projects just for students. Our work is community-driven and fits into a larger program of sustainable development.
Students not only work on an authentic development project alongside community members, they also stay with host families, meet with community leaders, and travel around the country to understand the historical, geographic and ecological specifics of Nicaragua.
Because we have been a working partner with Nicaraguan communities and other NGOs for so long, we have the trust of a wide range of Nicaraguans: doctors, farmers, government officials, professors, scientists, activists and artists. This allows us to provide students with a complex view of the issues that face a developing country.
Our staff is student-centered: we are fortunate to have an organization where each member is bilingual, skilled in working with first-time visitors to the country, and committed to global education for youth.
We work with US schools to tailor the program so that it meets the needs of the school and its students. We understand the need for balance and that includes making sure that the students and teachers also have fun.

Why Nicaragua?

With so many options out there for travel, why Nicaragua? Because of its size, proximity to the US, shared history with the US, students' relative lack of familiarity with it and VL's long-standing presence there, Nicaragua is the perfect place for students to get a complex understanding of a place. Nicaragua shares many of the same challenges other developing nations have but it is the openness and warmth of its people to welcome our students and share stories that make it a unique place for students to learn. In living, working and talking with Nicaraguans of all ages, students begin to understand:

The forces that drive people from Latin America to migrate to places like the US for work
What it takes to build human capital, the foundational source of change and empowerment
The importance of preserving and utilizing natural resources
How history and geography create the context that affects the choices people can and do make
That people, despite cultural differences, can connect and form lasting bonds of friendship

Students come to Nicaragua as a blank slate and leave with the an appreciation not only of the specifics of the Nicaraguan situation, but also those elements which are common to countries in Latin America and those which are shared by developing countries throughout the world. The learning that students achieve with VL endures well beyond their stay in Nicaragua.