Its an investment in your future

I have been visiting as many classes on campus as I can to spread the word about this program, and I can see it in the students' eyes when I say it will cost $2500+, because I know what its like to be living on the edge, paycheck to paycheck.
I try to make clear to everyone that this program is a great opportunity that can cause amazing positive change in one's life.
I have traveled quite a bit since becoming full time faculty. I have taken advantage of the funding available to faculty for travel to China, Mexico and various cities in the US, and have found that not only have I learned about the region visited, but that my own understanding of where I live has been transformed by the exposure to new ideas, new ways of relating to a community, new ways of viewing my role in my society, and new concepts of how a culture can operate.
That's the first benefit, but in addition, for this trip to Vietnam participants have the opportunity to experience providing a humanitarian service for Vietnamese people. We will be working one-on-one with Vietnamese college students in vocational programs for training in the tourism industry. To be employed as tour guides and in hotels, they need to be fluent in English. As native English language speakers, we can help them with pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence structure, and understanding English idioms. We will be helping them improve their employability and consequently their quality of life.
So the benefit for pariticipants it twofold: Imagine being an employer looking at stacks of resumes, job applications for a job opening and seeing one that has all the same qualifications as all the rest, but in addiition, shows that the applicant has traveled abroad, to Vietnam. Not only traveled there to experience the culture, but has provided a service to Vietnamese citizens as part of a college Study Abroad/Service Learning program that was paid out of the participants' own pocket and not a free trip. I believe that any employer would understand that this represents a lot of positive qualities about the applicant.
It represents experience interacting with, and understanding a foriegn culture. It represents experience dealing with unexpected situations where patience and flelxibility are necessary. It represents experience providing a service to an underserved constituent.
I believe these are qualities and experiences that are valuable in most occupations.

Hoi An

We will be spending one week in Hoi An, Vietnam. It is said to be one of the most beautiful cities in Vietnam. Check out the Unesco website here for more information about Hoi An.

How to enroll in the program

So, the Bridging the Gap program is for American students to travel to Vietnam and tutor Vietnamese college students in English. They will be in college vocational programs to help them get jobs in the tourism industry, for which they need to be fluent in English. The American students will use drawing as a means to overcome the language barrier and communicate, when necessary through the medium of visual images.
To be part of the program, a student has to enroll in Art111, section 38649, 3 credits, Introduction to Drawing, and EDU282AA, section 41850, 1 credit Volunteerism in Education. These classes are listed here in the spring 2013 schedule on the www.pvc.maricopa.edu website.
Cost of this program is $900 plus $1800 for airfare. These costs include all lodging, insurance, tour fees, tuition and some meals. A valid US passport is required, so if you don't have one you best apply soon because it takes up to six weeks to go through processing.
There is a mandatory orientation session on April 17 on the Paradise Valley Community College campus, then the classes start June 3 for drawing instruction and tutoring instruction. We will depart for Vietnam June 14, and return June 29.

My first visit to Vietnam.

I visited Vietnam last May to conduct the site assessment, which means inspecting the prospective locations for our program, making connections with the Vietnamese college administrators whose students we will tutor, checking out hotels, restaurants, health care facilities, etc. I traveled by myself from Phoenix to LAX, then to Hong Kong, then to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), then Da Nang. I was met at Da Nang airport by representatives of the International Labor Organization and the Vietnamese Department of Tourism. They introduced me to the college administrators at four colleges, two in Tam Ky, and two in Hoi An. Both towns are in Quang Nam Province along the coast in central Vietnam.
Having been to China four times, I was prepared for the extreme range of images; modern Ho Chi Minh City, and Da Nang, next to very poor hamlets and villages. Cell phones, motorbikes, and water buffaloes.
 I was not prepared for the friendliness of the people. Not only shopkeepers and wait staff in restaurants, but walking down the street getting nods and smiles from passersby.

 I experienced no tension, animosity or negativity of any kind from anyone in Vietnam, including English speaking taxi drivers to whom I inquired about their war experience. From one I learned his family had paid off the south Vietnamese army so he could spend the war time on his grandparents' farm in the countryside. From another I learned that he lived near Hanoi and his home was destroyed by an American bomb, but fortunately no one was hurt. From still another I learned that he was the offspring of an American GI and a Vietnamese mother, and being mixed race has meant ostracism by other Vietnamese.
The trip and personal interactions with Vietnamese people have given me a huge mental reset of my idea of Vietnam. Prior to my visit I associated Vietnam with the War, as my adolescence was consumed by the daily TV reporting of deaths and casualties and political and military actions in the cause of defending democracy from the plague of communism. At the time, the US government viewed communism the biggest threat to world peace and the American way. One can only wonder how things might have turned out had we not waged war in southeast Asia and let communism burn itself out.

Introduction

This blog is to share information on a program created to take students from Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix, Arizona to the central coast of Vietnam for tutoring Vietnamese college students in English so they can get better jobs in the tourism industry as tour guides.
We will spend the first two weeks of June 2013 on campus learning how to draw, that's right, draw! I will instruct you basic techniques in drawing freehand, as well as provide an indepth orientation on what to expect in Vietnam. We will depart for Vietnam on Friday, June 14 and return June 29. The first week we will be in Tam Ky, Quang Nam Province, just south of Da Nang. The second week we will be in Hoi An, one the UNESCO World Heritage sites, and a beautiful city.
Cost: $2700, which includes 4 college credits, airfare, lodging, fees, tours etc. It includes everything except lunch and dinner which will be on our own.
Enroll now for Art111 section 38649 Drawing 1, and EDU282AA section 41650 Volunteerism in Education in the spring schedule at pvc.maricopa.edu.
Contact me for more information david.bradley@paradisevalley.edu
602 787 6615

http://www.pvc.maricopa.edu/