Immersion fosters community in mending city

By Kristina Chiapella

After taking the last exam of finals week before winter break, most students will be heading home to spend quality time with family and friends over the vacation, with no greater concern than finding presents for everyone and avoiding an overdose of holiday cookies.

But for victims of Hurricane Katrina, one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in the history of the United States, this holiday season may not be so ideal, considering many homes are still uninhabitable following the disasters of August 2005.

The New Orleans immersion trip this December gives Santa Clara students the opportunity to do something meaningful for those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Students who choose to participate in the immersion trip will travel to the recovering city the first week of winter break, assist in the cleanup process and engage with community members.

This will be the second New Orleans immersion trip, a destination that was initiated last year by three Santa Clara students: Sarah Attwood, Anna Thornburn and Katy Erker. After Attwood and Thornburn returned from an immersion in El Salvador and witnessed the horror of Katrina, they "couldn't forget the problems that existed in our own country," said Attwood. These women decided to immerse themselves in issues of their own country by traveling to New Orleans.

They shared their idea with the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education, the department that sponsors immersion programs, and ended up in New Orleans last January. Arriving in the devastated city, Attwood said that it was very eerie to walk around even six months after the hurricane hit.

Yet the most inspiring thing that the group witnessed, she said, was "the spirit that still existed in the people there and their faith that the city would come together and rebuild itself."

Working through Catholic Charities of New Orleans, students will aid in removing debris from damaged homes and neighborhoods and assist with general cleanup to help restore areas ravaged by the storm.

The homeowner will be present at each residence students work on, giving them the chance to talk to and interact with hurricane victims. Opportunities will also be arranged for students to converse with community leaders who have been working to repair the damaged homes and lives left in the hurricane's wake.

The immersion application explains that participants will be brought to "consider the role that race and class played in the pre and post-hurricane evacuation process as well as in the city planning for New Orleans," and be given the chance to interact with experts and everyday people about plans for rebuilding their communities.

Students interested in going must fill out an application by Friday, available in the Ignatian Center in Sobrato Hall, at the Campus Ministry Office or on the Santa Clara Web site. The cost is $450, and participants will be responsible for their own travel arrangements to and from New Orleans.

Michael Colyer, assistant director of the Ignatian Center, said "we try to form a diverse but cohesive group," which includes both students who have and have not gone on immersion trips before, students of different majors and a mixture of men and women.

Colyer participated in the first New Orleans immersion trip, which consisted of a group of 13 students. Because they will be limiting acceptance to an equivalent number of students for the upcoming trip, Colyer said that it is "the level of care and thought that people put into their answers on the application that will determine how we decide."

According to the Ignatian Center's Web site, a major objective of Santa Clara's immersion trips is to get participants in contact with the realities of the world so that they can "learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively."

Contact Kristina Chiapella at (408) 551-1918 or kchiapella@scu.edu.