Targeting climate change and poverty

For more than 30 years, One World Center has been recruiting volunteers to work and travel together to address climate change and poverty.

Teaching English and Spanish, building children’s playgrounds, preschools, schools, kitchens and latrines are some of the projects the organization has done to improve communities in Africa and Central America.

“We are nonprofit and we are based in Michigan,” said Elisabeth Axelsen, an international specialist educator for the organization.

The organization offers two programs for potential volunteers: Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder with the Poor and Bike For Change.

“We have programs where people can learn a lot about the world,” Axelsen said. “One is about poverty and the other one [Bike For Change] about climate change.”

The Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder with the Poor program is a comprehensive study of global poverty. It is an 18-month program where volunteers will learn about the conditions of billions of people living in poverty and how it affects their health, education, freedom, economic opportunity and their very survival, according to the official web page of the organization, oneworldcenter.org.

In this program, volunteers will spend six months at their institute in Michigan where they will study the history of poverty, learn to empower the poor and train to become a development instructor.

“You will prepare yourself for the next six-month project,” she said.

After the six-month study, the team of volunteers will be divided into groups of three.

“Each three will go to a different project,” Axelsen said. “One type can be agriculture, other [types] can be climate change, health and community development.”

Volunteers will work together with the local staff and the community to find sustainable solutions for their lives.

“This combination is very powerful,”Axelsen said about the idea of mixing volunteers and a community in Africa to work together and determine what they think is important to improve in the village.

Equally important, the Bike For Change program will have volunteers bike through Central America to get closer to the environment and their residents. During the travel, volunteers will exchange experiences and information, connect communities and create channels of reliable information, according to oneworldcenter.org.

“The whole idea of this program is to meet people who are affected by climate change,” Axelsen said.

Teammates will live on the road while biking across the United States and Mexico to make it to Central America. During the journey, volunteers will have time to study more about the environment, people’s struggles in the region and look for solutions. Volunteers will record interviews, capture landscapes, write journals, livestream events and more.

“Perhaps you may see some problems that the local people don’t see,” Axelsen said.

The nine-month program consists of three periods: a three-month training in which volunteers begin biking and conducting investigations to learn about climate change. In those months volunteers, will decide the route of their travels, according to oneworldcenter.org.

The second period consists of four months biking to Central America. There, volunteers will study the environment and possible solutions to negative effects of climate change.

Period three consists of two months back in the U.S. In this period, volunteers will conclude their findings and present them to their group and communities. The team will host an event on campus as the final stage of the program, according to oneworldcenter.org

The Fighting Shoulder to Shoulder program costs $500 for enrollment and $4,900 for tuition; the Bike For Change enrollment fee is $500 and tuition is $2,500.

For more information about volunteering and the application process, visit oneworldcenter.org or contact Axelsen at elisabeth@oneworldcenter.org.