Every Marietta College student is encouraged to have at least one international experience as an undergraduate.
For Jackie Hartle ’11, that experience first took place in 2008, the summer after her freshman year, when she joined a group consisting of Marietta faculty, staff and students to travel to a small country in West Africa to volunteer in several villages and build a computer lab in one of the schools. Before her senior year at Marietta, she returned to the country of Ghana with the Marietta contingent to continue the work they had begun earlier.
This summer, the opportunity arose once again to participate in the Ghana service trip and to visit communities that welcomed her with open arms.
“During the 2008 and 2010 trips, I participated strictly as a student and treated the trips not only as a service experience in the village, but also as a learning experience,” Hartle says. “This most recent trip was strictly a service experience for me. Although I’d learned so much from my first two trips, the service aspect is what really stood out to me and made me feel as though my time overseas had done some good.”
Dr. Ena Vulor, McCoy Professor of French, led the service trip, which took place from May 14-27. Also on the trip were ProfessorJanie Rees-Miller, Gary Bosworth, who works in Marietta’s Information Technology Department, Taylor Hanigosky ’16 (Youngstown, Ohio), Ohio University student Lauren Winters, Washington State Community College Computer Sciences Professor Esther Salem, and Ethan Frank-Collins, a Marietta Noon Rotary Club member.
The group completed service projects in Kpoeta, which is in the Volta Region; in Old Tafo, which is in the Eastern Region; and in Kumasi, which is in the Ashanti Region of the country. Vulor says educational tours included the slave castles in Elmina and Cape Coast, and in the Kakum Park Rain Forest in the Central Region. They also visited Volta Lake, which is the largest man-man lake in the Volta Region; Bosomwe Lake, which is a crater lake in the Ashanti Region; and the Tafi Monkey Sanctuary in the Volta Region.
For the service portion of the trip, “the group visited elementary schools in three villages to commission computer labs, install computers and provide teaching and training,” Vulor says. “In one of the schools, Marietta College partnered with Marietta Morning Rotary Club and Rotary Club of Accra, Ghana to provide electricity and a new computer room.”
Bosworth credits Hartle’s involvement for gaining access to the majority of the computers installed in the Ghanaian schools.
“In the past trips, as well as this trip, the computers were donated by Cincinnati Country Day School, and on this trip the computers were also donated by (Hartle’s) current employer (Bandy Carroll Hellige Advertising), as well as Marietta College,” Bosworth says.
Hartle is grateful to her former high school and employer for understanding the impact that having access to technology has on the educational quality offered to children. She is also appreciative to Marietta College for stressing the importance of having an international experience.
“My time in Ghana over the years has made me more aware of how fortunate I am, even in the most mundane, every day situations,” Hartle says. “I’m much less likely to take things for granted. The kindness of the Ghanaian people has also stuck with me — I try and emulate that same kindness to my friends, family, coworkers, etc.”
Vulor says the trip provided participants a good exposure to different cultures as well as an appreciation for the similarities and differences between Ghanaian and their own culture.
Winters agrees and says she was happy to be able to join the Marietta College group for the service project.
“It will always be an amazing experience that I will take with me,” Winters says. “I got to learn and enjoy a whole new culture and place, and I know it is somewhere I will want to return and visit again. I also appreciate that this experience has not only taught me new things, but also allowed me to give back. It was a great experience and something I will never forget.”
GI SMITH
