Exchange project looks at water issues
Students from Puerto Rico, Mexico involved in three-year project
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Project Vital students and King's School of Journalism director Kim Kierans. Photo: Mauricio Planchart
As part of its efforts to bring more cultural diversity to students, the University of King's College has become part of a new exchange program that brings new students to the school and gives King's students the opportunity to go to other countries.
It's the first-ever exchange project the school has been involved with.
The project, called "Project Vital," engages journalism students in the exploration of environmental issues concerning water use.
The project is for communications students, especially those in journalism, and involves students from countries such as the U.S. Mexico and Puerto Rico, Canada.
The project began in the fall 2009 semester and King's will send 13 students to five partner universities for six school semesters.
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Jose Ettiene Ortiz describe his experience of the Project Vital
PARTNERS OF PROJECT VITAL
This semester two students from Puerto Rico and two from of Mexico are part of the exchange and in January of 2010 two King's students will go to the University of New Mexico and to Mexico's Universidad de Colima to continue their journalism studies.
One of the students involved in the exchange, Rafael Contreras of Mexico, said he has learned a lot, although the main challenge "may be the language.''
"When you travel, you learn a lot. You mix the social mores that come complete with Canada. I learned a lot about our planet, water, recycling and most of all the cultural diversity that exists in the country," he said.
He said the project ''has been very good experience." adding that, "I have always been sincerely curious to go to Canada."
The director of the journalism school, Kim Kierans, is the co-ordinator of this new exchange program.
"Project Vital is a small step towards cross-cultural understanding of water and environmental issues" she said. "When students travel to a new area they discover differences and similarities as compared to back home."
"King's wants our students to graduate as critical thinkers and with a base of knowledge they can apply to their writing," she said. "Project Vital helps do this in two ways, by having students from other cultures come and spend time in Halifax and by having our students go to places in Mexico'' and the United States.
Contreras is joined on the project by Jose Ortiz Ettiene, of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico but is doing a exchange at King's College.
"One of the things that motivated me to come to Canada, was the language aspect," he said. "I wanted to improve my second language (English) and I thought Canada was a good opportunity to do that. The fact that I have never been into Canada before was also one of the reasons I wanted to come."
Contreras and Ortiz are currently part of journalism classes and they are conducting journalism research on ecological sustainability.
"We researching a problem with the sewage treatment plant which stopped working just months after being constructed, forcing the city to dump the disposal waters into the harbour without being treated," he said. "We are creating a journalistic article about what chemicals people throw into the sewage system, because these chemicals are not treated before they make their way to the ocean," said Ortiz.
Mauricio Planchart is a student in Project Vital
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