HILLEL ALTERNATIVE BREAKS

Hillel Alternative Break Programs 

For the last seven years, Hillel UW & Jconnect Seattle have engaged in Alternative Break programs. These service learning trips allow students to travel abroad, participate in tzedek/community service projects, interact with community members and discuss their Jewish identities in relationship to the trip and the projects they are involved with. Synthesizing the student's passion for service and their Jewish identities is at the crux of the Alternative Break programs. Other goals of this effort are students sharing in a cross-cultural experience, challenging themselves and their ideas, and to growing as active community citizens. 

Past trips have included students traveling to Argentina in Spring 2004 to work with a Jewish community in economic crisis. In Argentina students visited with the elderly, painted a mural, and played with youth.

In 2005 students traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. There students celebrated Purim with the community, taught children about dental hygiene in the favellas/slums of Rio de Janeiro and played with kids in an orphanage. They also met with university peers and spent time at Hillel Rio.

 

In 2006, 11 undergraduate students, and 10 Jconnect participants traveled to the Bajo Lempa region of El Salvador with the American Jewish World Service. They stayed in the communities of Ciudad Romero and Isla de Mendez located in the south east of the country. While there, both undergrads and Jconnectors participated in agricultural projects. These included reforesting Mangrove trees, building fences and compost bins, sifting stones from soil, and seeding projects. In addition to the service projects

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