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SUNY Fredonia
In 2005, SUNY Fredonia education professor Ellie Reddy and her students created the first FAB chapter, which has ignited the entire Fredonia, NY community. Learn More  Hide 
Program Description:
Friends Across Borders (FAB) is a group that strives to enhance the lives of children in Belize through a community service project each year since 2007. Some members of FAB travel to Belize to work with the students and teachers in the school classrooms. These visits are an opportunity to provide much needed teaching supplies and add to their classroom resources. These trips will allow us to serve those less fortunate. Throughout the year in preparation for our visit we collect donations, buy supplies, and create teacher resource packets. At the SUNY Fredonia FAB Club, our mission as a campus is to unite in helping the poverty stricken people of Belize.
Students help in many ways. Each year a group of students and professors go to Belize to help teach in the poor schools in Belize City. Others conduct fundraisers (i.e. fashion shows, car wash, etc) to raise money for school supplies.
How to get Involved:
Contact fab@intervol.org to get the contact information for the current Fredonia FAB president.
University of Rochester
At the U of R, FAB offers undergraduate and medical students the opportunity to work together, providing projects to connect the students to the community in Belize. Learn More Hide
The Harley School
Harley Hospice
Seniors at The Harley School spend a year in the classroom learning about end of life and palliative care. Their instructor Bob Kane leads the students on trips to apply their skills in Belize, India, and South Africa. Learn More Hide
Program Description:
"The simple presence of another, fellow human being brings a pacific calm over the troubled souls of the dying. The intangible feeling of community is something all students must not only learn about in classes focused on rights and freedoms, but feel as they stand at the foot of another’s death bed." - Sawyer Jacobs, Harley Hospice Alumnus '05
In 2007, InterVol extended its education partnership with The Harley School to include the Harley Hospice Program. “It’s a natural step for us,” comments Bob Kane, Hospice Program Director at The Harley School, where the program began in 2003. Harley seniors are trained for one year in hands-on end-of-life care, and they provide bedside care to the dying in their own communities within Rochester, New York and its surrounding regions. Care includes hygiene, feeding, massage, assistance with the activities of daily living, and, most important, being present.
To heighten the students’ service/experiential learning, those who qualify, have the opportunity to apply their skills abroad, either in India or Belize. In India, students work with Mother Teresa’s end-of-life care personnel and with a team of local doctors who are teaming with Harley/InterVol to cooperate in the development of a 50 bed hospice in Calcutta, a 12 bed facility in Asurali village, and a clinic in Chuikhim, an outlying village at the foothills of the Himalaya.
In Belize, Harley students continue to work with Good Shepherd Clinic in Succotz to provide hospice care in the Cayo District. In addition, Harley students are providing end-of-life care in Dangriga Hospital, and peer-tutoring Belizean Venture Scouts throughout Belize in the art of hospice care. This latter initiative recieved a grant from the E.E. Ford Foundation to provide Harley and Belizean students with a cultural exchange via a distance learning link between The Harley School, InterVol and our Belizean partners.
Both program sites continue to be supported by InterVol’s RUMS Program.
Hospice Corps
Similar to the mission of the Peace Corps, Hospice Corps focuses on fulfilling needs abroad, developing palliative care programs in locations with no end of life care. Learn More Hide
Program Description:
Due to the local success of Harley’s Hospice Program, a new element of the program called Hospice Corps is being developed to provide sustainable end-of-life care to regions in the world where there is no hospice or palliative care infrastructure. Hospice Corps is modeled after the Peace Corps in that its mission is to promote mutual understanding between cultures while leaving behind sustainable infrastructure by training the indigenous population and delivering requisite supplies and materials. The metaphor for this outreach is the "backpack". Hospice Corps students make a commitment to a community and then carry many of the elements of that commitment on their back. The end-of-life care backpack contains many items to help with comfort care in the field. However, the utility of this metaphor goes further to capture the need for maximum social impact in a region while leaving behind a very small footprint. Thus, the backpack also holds the customs, traditions, rituals, and human legacies of the region being visited. More than supplies are unpacked from it. The bearer also unpacks and begins to exchange their own socio-cultural gifts to promote more cross-cultural understanding, and global empathy. What is repacked and brought home is immeasurable.
Belize has been selected as the initial target area for Hospice Corps. Belize has a population of 300,000, the smallest population density of Central and South American nations, as well as generalized English language fluency due to its former status as British Honduras. Indeed, Belize has been the focus of Intervol’s humanitarian efforts over the past 8 years, and InterVol’s ties with the Belizean Department of Health and the Belizean Cancer Societies in Belmopan, Dangriga and Belize City provide a unique opportunity to offer hospice training to rural/remote Belizean communities, establishing a local corps of end-of-life care volunteers, supported by supplies and expertise from InterVol.
In the final analysis, the internal and external domains of experiential/service learning within the context of end-of-life care converge with the validation of Gandhi's challenge, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
How to get Involved:
Contact Bob Kane at bob.kane@intervol.org
New Visions
New Visions students come from local Rochester high schools, with the desire to pursue a career in medicine and therefore spend part of their school day in a hospital environment. Learn More Hide
Program Description:
The New Visions Medical Careers program offers high school seniors the opportunity to explore careers in the health care field through a partnership with Rochester General Hospital. The curriculum is designed to provide students with hands-on experience in medical careers while participating in an integrated academic program.
Since these students are some of the most motivated students interested in medicine from the local high schools, they have pursued very involved projects working with InterVol. In 2006 the students took on the challenge of creating bilingual translation materials for the health care professionals going to Belize. These materials included post-operative instructions, as well as information sheets on a variety of health conditions and diseases. The New Visions students also produced a pronunciation DVD to help teach the health care professionals before the trip.
In 2008, the students are working on a number of projects including, creating a medical record & operating room sheet for the VMP volunteers to use with the patients in Belize and public health materials for both Kenya and Belize. A third group is working through a local AP Art class to show the applications that RUMS materials can have in an art, science, and regular classroom.
How to get Involved:
To learn more about New Visions visit www.monroe.edu/careerandtechnical/emcc
Scouting Association of Belize
The Scouts in Belize are a wonderfully motivated co-ed group of 7-21 year olds who invite InterVol to work with them in offering more opportunities for their youth and community. Learn More Hide Program Description:
“Scouting is a non-formal education movement that provides through volunteer adult leadership, programs designed to be challenging, useful, rewarding and attractive (CURA), with the aim to instill a positive influence on the character of the participating young people.” -Scouting Association of Belize
The Scouting Association of Belize is a co-educational group comprising of students from 7-21 years old. The organization has only been in existence since 1987 with the Scout Association of Belize Act passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate of Belize.
Similarly to the scouting associations in the United States and around the world, the mission of the Scouts is to “encourage the physical, mental, and spiritual development of young people so that they may take a constructive place in society.”
The Scouts have been a vital resource for many of InterVol’s groups going to Belize. In 2006 and 2007, FAB members worked primarily with the Scouts to establish the first public computer lab in Belize. With the donation of the computers from Rochester and the help of the Rochester General Hospital IT department a total of twenty computers were set up in their lab in Belize City. FAB students ran workshops on basic computer and Internet use, both for the Scouts, as well as their parents.
The FAB chapter at Fredonia has also maintained a close relationship with the Scouts in their work with the schools.
Perhaps the most integrated way that the Scouts will be associated with InterVol is through the Harley Hospice Program. Although Harley students will be going to Belize once a year, they are going to work continuously with the Scouts to develop a hospice program in Belize to offer end-of-life care to those in need. The Rochester students will educate their peers in Belize and help them to create a sustainable program.
Links:
Scout Association of Belize
InterVol with the Scouts
How to get Involved:
To participate with the hospice program contact Bob Kane at bob.kane@intervol.org.
For other activities involving the Scouts in Belize, please contact Leah Gacioch at leah.gacioch@intervol.org.
Service-Learning Belize
Every year students join the participants on the VMP trips, but this program allows students to be responsible for their own project and really learn about the culture, people, and country of Belize. Learn More Hide Program Description:
InterVol is very excited to open this opportunity up to local high school and college students with an interest of traveling to Belize with the Volunteer Medical Professionals (VMP) in March. Although this is an experience may be favorable to many due to the prospects of foreign travel, we expect these students to be dedicated to the greater purpose of service learning. Even if you have traveled with InterVol before please be aware that the only way that students will be allowed to go to Belize starting with the 2009 trip is through this program.
Francesca Pennino has developed a small curriculum to enable the students a better understanding of what they will see and do. Students are required to participate in discussions and complete readings about Belize and the topic of poverty before the trip. Once in Belize students will have the opportunity to work in the hospital and clinics with the VMP group, but they will also be responsible for their own project during their time there.
How to get Involved:
The application deadline for the 2009 trip has already passed, but please contact leah.gacioch@intervol.org for more information about the program or to be put on the list to receive the application for the 2010 trip.
University of Rochester Medical School
The medical students from UR will conduct the first student led research projects for an extended study program over their summer holiday, including teaching CPR and other life-saving courses in Dangriga and working with the telemedicine communications within Belize. Learn More Hide
Program Description:
Working with Adrienne Morgan, the Director of Student Enrichment Programs at the University of Rochester, the potential for medical students getting involved in InterVol’s international programs, particularly in Belize was realized. We are looking to send a group of students abroad in the summer of 2009. Medical school is obviously a time consuming commitment and therefore we are considering working with the first year medical students during the summer following their first year. However, all years are welcome.
At the University of Rochester, the summer break for the first year students is approximately 10 weeks in length, from the end of May to the beginning of August. Ideally the program we are designing would allow 4-6 students to participate in an extended research project in Belize for 6-8 weeks, with the potential to send another small group down towards the end of their stay to continue the projects for an additional couple of weeks.
The projects that we are currently considering have to do primarily with the telemedicine network and distant learning. The students would be responsible for working with the staff at Southern Regional in terms of maintaining the infrastructure of a regular consult schedule with the physicians in Rochester, as well as organizing educational sessions (i.e. for nurses). The medical students would also play a vital role in establishing the second location in Independence, if that is the desired access point for the second unit.
The other project that has gained a lot of momentum blossomed from an idea from one of the medical students, in terms of helping to develop a more advanced ambulance system in Dangriga. This individual has had a lot of EMS experience in and around Rochester and he is interested in helping however he could, whether it be in equipping the ambulance or providing trainings in resuscitation.
How to get Involved:
The first group of six students has already been selected for the summer of 2009. If you are interested in applying for the 2010 program please contact one of the individuals below.
For more information please contact leah.gacioch@intervol.org or cynthia.gordon@viahealth.org
Teacher’s Night at the Warehouse
Many of the donated items which InterVol receives on a daily basis have purposes which can be transferred to a classroom setting, such as different sized basins for paints and drapes for an art classroom and many items for a science class. Teacher’s Night allows teacher’s to “shop” the InterVol warehouse for materials for their classroom. Learn More Hide Program Description:
In June 2008 we instituted our collection program at Rochester General Hospital, creating a model to be established at other medical facilities. With the heightened awareness and support of the initiative we are seeing the volume of collected materials increasing every week. As such, we are continually seeking ways to donate these items back to our own community.
In a society in which the price of everything is always on the rise, it is widely known that various aspects of the classroom are often the first to see their budget cut and InterVol would like to offer you some help. Many of the items we receive each week, although intended for medical situations, have the potential to assist in an educational environment. Our supplies can be useful for art, science, special education, and even a regular classroom. Some examples of this are–scissors, hammers, tweezers, plastic basins, paper gowns, fabric gowns, paper drop clothes –and the list goes on.
Responses from participating teachers:
“There are many uses in art. The sponges with the plastic handles are easy for little hands to apply paint. The bowls, pans, cups with lids will be great for storing paint, sequence & buttons. The traps will make it easy for students to hand out materials and the deep pans will be used for making homemade paper and to organize the classroom.” - Carole P, Art Teacher at St. Lawrence and Corpus Christi Catholic Schools
“Every year I stretch my budget as far as it will go but I never seem to get everything I need. I always need more stuff. I like to build models for student use or demonstrations and am always looks for items to help me out. The bowls, syringes, and trays will definitely aide me in my classroom.” - Brian M, Hilton High School Earth Science Teacher
“I will use the totes as tool boxes for the kids, the ‘sponges on sticks’ will be used by my less capable children for art projects for painting, making patterns, cards, designs – (you get the idea!) & the wash tubs will be used to hold blocks, lentils/beans for OT sensory activities.” - Pam P, Special Education Teacher, North Rose Elementary
“I enjoyed this experience because of the various materials that I can use and be creative with to introduce students to the field of science.” - Deborah S, Principal Dag Hammarskjold #6
How to get Involved:
For information about the next Teacher’s Night at the Warehouse contact Leah Gacioch at leah.gacioch@intervol.org.
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