Students travel to Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico City for projects

Seventeen students from the Wake Forest Catholic Community will travel to Costa Rica Jan. 3-13 to work with Nicaraguans in a refugee community in Alajuelita, a small borough outside San Jose. The students will volunteer as tutors, help run a physical rehabilitation clinic and build a playground at a community center. Their service trip will be coordinated by Mas Que Un Amigo (More Than a Friend), a nonprofit organization in Costa Rica that runs a physical therapy clinic and other social service programs there.

Students on the Costa Rica trip leave from Charlotte/Douglas International Airport Jan. 3 at 12:50 p.m. on American Airlines Flight 515. They will return to Winston-Salem Jan. 13.

Ten Wake Forest students will volunteer Jan. 5-13 with the Honduras Outreach Project and Exchange (HOPE) Scholars Program, a Wake Forest program coordinated by Honduras Outreach Inc., a private organization in Decatur, Ga. They will travel to the Agalta Valley, a remote mountainous region of Honduras devastated by 1998’s Hurricane Mitch to dig latrines, restore houses and repair roads.

The HOPE Scholars leave for Honduras at 7:50 a.m. Jan. 5, on American Airlines flight 1029 from Raleigh-Durham International Airport. They will return to Winston-Salem on Jan. 13.

The City of Joy Scholars left for Mexico City Dec. 27. They are now volunteering at the Hogar Pax y Alegria (Home of Peace and Happiness), one of the facilities founded by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. The City of Joy Scholars Program at Wake Forest usually takes student volunteers to Calcutta, India (called the City of Joy) to work with the Missionaries of Charity there. After Sept. 11, because of India’s close proximity to Pakistan and Afghanistan, university officials decided to send the students to the Missionaries of Charity in Mexico City instead. India and Pakistan have a long history of political conflict which has intensified in recent months.

The students are working with orphaned and disabled infants, children, teen-age girls and women. They will clean beds, feed the residents, play with the children and do repair work around the home. The students took supplies including pens and paper, and toiletries like Vaseline, diapers and lotion to share with the women and children.

The City of Joy group will return to Winston-Salem on Jan. 13.