BizBuzz
BizBuzz Home | http://business.fiu.edu

Good works and hard work combine to bring tears of joy to student humanitarians.

Andres Franco

Can a group of students who speak no Thai find a way to communicate with and affect the lives of children in Bangkok?

If those students are part of a Global Leadership and Service Project (GLSP), and if the measure of the impact comes in the form of smiles, hugs, tears, and a sense of anticipation for next’s GLSP, the answer is yes.

Launched in 2004, the GLSP-Bangkok, then a new concept in international global service, has grown to include students from other universities who carry the concept back to their schools. Participants from these universities have received travel awards from the College of Business Administration, one of the many entities within Florida International University that supports the project. Also, the relationship with university students in Thailand who partner with the visiting students has deepened.

“Despite the severity of the kids’ disabilities, we had an amazing time with them.”

—Andres Franco, international business major, GLSP team leader

Group poses in front of The Ambassador Hotel.

This year’s trip, which took place over spring break from March 13-24, 2008, brought together 24 students from the university; a travel grant recipient from Baruch College and one from George Washington University; a student from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas; a student from Colombia; the head of the international business department at Arkansas State University; Robert Hogner, associate professor, Department of Management and International Business and coordinator of the college’s Civic Engagement Initiative; and 21 students from partner university Chandrakasem Rajabaht University’s (CRU) English Club and Community Development Department. The group included a team leader and a site leader for each location.

No matter the planning, each year brings surprises, requiring flexibility.

GLSP and Rajabaht students at Baan Rachawadee

The 2008 team leader, Andres Franco, an international business major, looked forward to returning to Baan Rachawadee, a modern, government-sponsored complex that delivers services to people with special needs. Last year, the group arrived with a curriculum, only to discover that the boys were too disabled to participate in many of the planned activities. Through teamwork, the students came up with a number of activities the kids could perform and the week was a resounding success.

Recalling the boys’ challenges, the group planned appropriate activities for 2008 only to discover upon their arrival that they would be working with a different group of boys —ones facing even more severe physical and mental challenges. Once again, flexibility was the order of the day.

“We danced and sang a lot,” Franco said. “Despite the severity of the kids’ disabilities, we had an amazing time with them.”

Group works with students at FBLC

The other two groups worked at the Foundation for the Better Life of Children (FBLC)—a pre-school that rescues children living on the streets, and at a new site: a Royal-Family sponsored community pre-school in the economically disadvantaged area of Klong Toey.

Tears measure the impact.

“The Klong Toey site turned out to be a very successful effort as the children, the GLSP group, and the Thai volunteers all bonded,” said Thailand project coordinator Supaporn Blauw (Duen), Hogner’s Bangkok liaison since the project began. “We saw that people from all over the world can give and receive this love and show their happiness no matter where they happen to live. When we help others, we don’t think of who we are and see others as equal.”

“At closing ceremonies at all three sites, tears flowed freely.”

—Robert Hogner, associate professor, Department of Management and International Business; coordinator, Civic Engagement Initiative

Students and group participants at Klong Toey

“At closing ceremonies at all three sites, tears flowed freely,” Hogner said. “Those from our students and from CRU were for their happiness at a task well done, their regret that many would be parting ways, but mostly their sadness that the children who had been part of their lives for five days would not be there the next day.”

Plans have begun for the fifth GLSP-Bangkok, including planning with CRU for “up-country” Thailand projects with multiple, but smaller teams.

The GLSP is offered through the college’s Civic Engagement Initiative and supported by the Center for Business Education and Research (CIBER), Asian Studies, the Honors College, the business school’s executive dean’s office, and the Department of Management and International Business.