Building Bridges Worldwide and the McCombs School of Business are excited to be organizing our annual McCombs MAP Trip for 2018. This year we are visiting a community called Penas Blancas in Nicaragua. We will be constructing a pre-school and playground for the children of the community. This will dramatically improve their learning conditions and obviously make play time that much more fun!
There will be plenty of cultural, educational and recreational activities in addition to all the construction fun. For this trip, we are partnering with a company called Eleva Coffee that sources their coffee beans from the farmers in Penas Blancas. This is something new we are adding this year, to give students an inside look at how the local farmers participate in international markets.
Volunteers will be required to fund raise $1,200 which will all go towards the construction expenses.
These trips are always an adventure, on many levels, and this year promises to be just as amazing.
There will be others but here are a few key items to remember before you go:
Fundraising - set up your personalized portal on CrowdRise and get the word out
Passport - make sure you have a valid passport, not expiring within 6 months of traveling.
Visas - for non-US passport holders, please ensure proper visas are secured as well
Vaccinations - these will be detailed in the volunteer packet, but are very important
McCombs Program Office - to be received from the MBA program office
We will provide in depth detail about each of these things and many others in the volunteer packet you will receive once you register.
Everyone to arrive in Managua and get settled in their hotels rooms. We encourage everyone to travel together on the same flight to arrive at the same, although it is not required. After we gather everyone at the hotel, we will have a quick briefing of with our local partners and the team. Then we are all going to have dinner with some McCombs alumni that live in Managua.