Yesterday Youth Opportunities hosted students from Western Carolina University in North Carolina, U.S., who are in Kingston on an alternative spring break. The students are studying in several disciplines and see their visit to Kingston as an opportunity to do service work as well as witness ways of living that are vastly different from their own. As WCU political science professor Michael McDonald told me, he hopes the trip will provide students with a sense of global citizenship and appreciation for the challenges people face. “This was life-changing and broadened perspectives,” he said of the students who visited Kingston a year ago on the same trip. In fact, some students changed their focus of study to incorporate more service-oriented professions.

On the visit yesterday, students and McDonald (along with Professor Rebecca Lasher and high school teacher Erin Johnston) got a chance to first hear more about YOU and then tour the community of Mountain View. YOU has worked in Mountain View for several years and community leaders are always happy to see us. We received a warm welcome and were then treated to introductions of residents and students alike. Jovan, president of the Youth Club (who I wrote about the other day) performed a poem he wrote to the delight of the audience. The professors then presented soccer equipment they had collected in the U.S. for Mountain View youth.

After this short ceremony, the students visited people in their homes to talk about life in Mountain View. The community lies in the shadow of a mountain that cuts Kingston in half. And while it has been the victim of violence over the past, it has calmed down in the past couple of years. Although when I was visiting one of the homes, a woman told me her daughter and another man were stabbed two weekends ago. No one was killed fortunately. Today, we will accompany the students to the beautiful Hope Gardens and up in the mountains.