By Anish Sundar ‘20
Bellarmine is a school of giving and serving our community. This year, all of you have an opportunity to serve and make world a better place through one of Bellarmine’s immersion trips! Immersion trips offer various insight into the lives and cultures of different areas around the world, which involves engaging in various activities with the local population.
Bellarmine offers a variety of immersion trips for sophomores, juniors and seniors over the course of the school year. In the fall, urban and rural plunges are trips in which students and faculty are given the opportunity to understand the impact of poverty at the local level, and interact directly with the poor. Students will take action in response to what they have witnessed on their journey. Plunges take place in San Francisco, San Jose and Salinas. On the urban plunge, you will meet with a number of agencies that care for the homeless, and serve meals at soup kitchens. On rural plunges, you will better understand the struggles of migrant farm workers by working alongside them.
During the February and Easter break, Bellarmine offers both domestic and international immersion trips, with the addition of the Cambodia trip over winter break. The summer is also a great time to volunteer and help the community both internationally and domestically. International trips include Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, South Africa, and Puerto Rico, while domestic trips allow students to travel to Louisiana and West Virginia. On these trips, you will experience the religion and culture of the country while teaching and tutoring elementary and middle school students. Other activities include painting and building maintenance, which involves constructing homes and shelters for the population. In some trips, students are able to meet and interact with peers from their brother and sister Jesuit high schools. Overall, participating in an immersion trip is something that you will remember forever. This is a once in a lifetime experience that you will not want to miss!
More info and applications for immersions can be found here: http://www.bcp.org/students/immersion/index.aspx