Dayton Daily News - 10/15/2020 Career center student participates in global exchange program
The COVID-19 global pandemic has linked the citizens of the earth together this year perhaps more than any time in recent history. Businesses and organizations, large and small, have been forced to transform to survive and never has technology been more important.
Our world suddenly seems a bit smaller as we all battle the pandemic together.
High school and college students who had planned to study abroad, but found themselves “grounded” at home this year, are also finding ways to connect globally through technology.
Bethany Weldy of Covington, a student at the Miami Valley Career Technology Center in Clayton now in her senior year, was sent home like most students in mid-March due to the pandemic and the lockdown of the entire state.
“I’m studying pre-nursing,” Weldy said. “So, I’m interested in how the virus is affecting our communities.”
Weldy’s advisor encouraged her to participate in a program called “United Planet,” a virtual exchange program based in Boston that involves students from Ohio, Indiana, Maine and Massachusetts and connects them with students from more than 30 countries.
“I didn’t know much about some of these countries when I started the program,” Weldy said. “We connected with students from Iraq and were charged to come up with projects that addressed the health disparities because of this virus.”
The seven-week-long program began on July 6 and students in Weldy’s group — from the U.S. and Iraq — met virtually via the Zoom platform.
Each team of eight students was led by two college students, but the younger students worked on the final project independently.
“They didn’t have a lot of strict rules,” Weldy said
“They encouraged us to be creative and imaginative in solving these issues.”
Weldy’s team decided to create a virtual art exhibition with a focus on mental health issues developing during the pandemic. The team created fliers and used social media as well as a website to encourage submissions.
We wanted to know how the year 2020 has affected people and encouraged them to use art as therapy,” she said.
The team worked together to market the project around the globe, and it was so successful that they plan to continue accepting submissions through the end of the year.
“In the beginning I had no idea how this was going to work out,” Weldy said. “We put about three to five hours a week into it and it turned out to be a great opportunity to expand my knowledge of public health.”
Weldy said she learned much of that from the Iraqi students themselves — the culture and their country’s response to the pandemic.
“I found out that in Iraq there are not as many large factories as there are here,”
Weldy said. “There are a lot of small family businesses and they were really hit hard during the pandemic. They also have a lot more poverty than we do.”
But the culture and structure of this country so far away from home were not the only things that were eye opening to Weldy and her other U.S. teammates.
“In the United States, we rely so much on communication and we end up using 150 words to say something we could say in 100,” Weldy said. “We are very detailed but in Iraq, they rely more on non-verbal communication and they don 't talk as much as we do.”
The diversity of the American students also helped round out the team. One of Weldy’s teammates, for example, had lived in India and was able to speak about life there.
“We all came from different cultures,” she said.
“There weren’t any barriers, amazingly, and we communicated and understood each other so that helped a lot during this project.”
A total of 12 teams of 120 students participated in United Planet this year and each team completed a different project. United Planet connects students with others from 30 countries who all want to make a difference and learn, teach, work, engage and immerse themselves in a culture outside of their own comfort zones.
And though 2020 was certainly not a year for travel, students connected anyway and were still able to experience something unique.
“This was such a positive experience,” Weldy said
“Learning more about culture and the diversity in our group was absolutely amazing!
A lot of the other projects were really cool as well — they all did a great job!”
For more information, visit Unitedplanet.org and check out the virtual art exhibition at coronaartexhibition. blogspot.com/.
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