SIT Study Abroad

• A pioneer in experiential, field-based study abroad providing academically engaging semester and summer programs with a focus on critical global issues.
• More than 2,000 undergraduates from 200-plus colleges and universities study in over 40 countries each year.

Tim Soo

Although Tim Soo and his SIT Study Abroad classmates only spent one night with Panama's nomadic Ngobe-Bugle people, the experience turned them into philanthropists and social activists.

Soo, a Senior at Emory University and a fall 2008 student on an SIT Study Abroad: Panama program, originally planned to conduct research on medicine in Panama, but found the conversations always drifting back towards more basic needs for food and shelter. It was the first time he and the other group members had truly observed extreme poverty, and they decided that they needed to do something about it.

"We attempted to come up with a solution to escaping these difficulties; we decided the best way was through education," Soo says.

As a result, the fall 2008 Panama group, led by Soo, started a reciprocity project they call "Few for Change." To date, Few for Change has raised over $3,000. On February 20th they successfully awarded three scholarships to secondary school students in the Ngobe-Bugle indigenous territory of Panama.

The Ngobe-Bugle, home to the Ngobe people, is an isolated, impoverished community in the mountains of Panama. Many families lack the resources to afford food, health care, safe water, and education. Currently only one member of the Ngobe-Bugle has a college education.

Aly Dagang, SIT Study Abroad Associate Dean for Latin America, presented the scholarship awards to Corina Carrera Santo, Eranio Santo Giron and Lorena Carpintero Palacio. All three students are residents of Ngobe-Bugle, a homestay community for the SIT Study Abroad: Panama program.

Few for Change will cover the costs of tuition, transportation, uniforms and other school materials for one year. The organization also pledged to raise funds to continue support for the students until they graduate from university.

Eranio hopes to specialize in engineering, while Corina and Lorena aspire to become teachers. All three scholarship recipients plan to return home to the Ngobe-Bugle territory after completing university degrees.

Tim Soo is hopeful that the scholarship will break this cycle of poverty and empower youth to become future leaders of the community. "All of these students could not afford to continue with school,” he says. “We hope that the educational achievements of the students we fund will ultimately come back to benefit the community."

With each passing semester, more SIT Study Abroad alumni will join the organization, hoping to give back to their homestay families. They will use SIT Study Abroad's online Global Reciprocity Fund initiatives to raise and distribute the scholarship funds in hopes of making this a sustainable alumni project.

"Perhaps we all should take a different view on life, realize what we have, and recognize the responsibility we have to use our knowledge, to make an impact, to use wisely the life we were given," writes Soo after his experience with SIT Study Abroad Panama.

The experiences of Soo and his fellow SIT Study Abroad Panama classmates will not only affect them for the rest of their lives, but is also having a ripple effect on future university students of the Ngobe people in Panama.

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