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FSU Program - Learning & Service Journey Into Amazonia: Peru
This program is designed for students who would like to experience life in the Amazon while working in service learning fieldwork. While taking a course about cultures of the Amazon basin, students will do volunteer work in Iquitos and in nearby riverine peasant and indigenous communities on the Amazon, Nanay and Itaya rivers.
In addit... read more
This program is designed for students who would like to experience life in the Amazon while working in service learning fieldwork. While taking a course about cultures of the Amazon basin, students will do volunteer work in Iquitos and in nearby riverine peasant and indigenous communities on the Amazon, Nanay and Itaya rivers.
In addition to classes and activities conducted by Florida State faculty, students will participate in the daily life of the Iquiteños by living in homestays and learning simultaneously from specialized Peruvian professionals. These professionals will present an overview of important topics related to culture and development in the region: indigenous cultures, health and medical issues, ethnobotany, forestry and sustainable practices and the cultural arts. Students will travel frequently by boat in the Amazon and Nanay rivers to visit local communities.
Excursions are likely to include a two-day visit to the local village of Padre Cocha where students will see a butterfly garden and a Kukama language maintenance school, as well as a three day group excursion to San Rafael, a village sustained by ecotourism, situated two and a half hours down the Amazon River with a primary forest that has never been cut. The highlight of this program is a five-day visit to the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, the largest protected area of Peru and the second largest protected area in the entire Amazon basin. Its 5,137,000 acres of protected unchanged forest make the lives of myriads of species possible. In Pacaya-Samiria, students will learn about forest and riverine people who have an inter-dependent relationship with plants, animals and their environment through sustainable practices of fishing, hunting and cultivating plot gardens.
Eligibility
This program is open to all students. Students should have a basic knowledge of Spanish.
International Programs strongly advises students to meet with the Program Leader prior to applying to the program to help ensure this is the right program for each applicant.
Housing
Students will stay with selected Peruvian families. Less
