For residents of university’s East Asian House, trip brings semester’s curriculum to life
They visited Bangkok’s Grand Palace with its temples and pavilions on the banks of the Chao Phraya River. They learned how to make Chiang Mai chicken, steamed banana cake and Pad Thai at the Chiang Mai Cookery School. They marveled over the sinuous gyrations of performers at the Northern Thai Dance Workshop.
But the 22 Rutgers students who lived together this fall semester in the university’s East Asian House – absorbing the culture, customs and geopolitical realities of a nation nearly 9,000 miles away – had more than tourism on their minds when they began their 28-hour plane trip in January.
During their two weeks in Thailand, they met with members of nongovernmental organizations dedicated to combating violence against women. They taught English to children who had been or were at risk of becoming victims of sexual exploitation. Mostly, they explored the complex roots of human trafficking in the region, and got an up-close look at the realities behind the curriculum they had been processing during the previous four months.
“I knew to expect amazing Thai food, of course, but, most importantly, I knew I’d be encountering the realities of countless social issues affecting women and children in what tourists commonly know as ‘the Land of Smiles,’ ” says Valerie Edouard of Irvington, a junior majoring in sociology and Latino and Caribbean studies.
The East Asian House is part of The Global Village at Douglass Residential College, which is set among Rutgers’ residence halls. Facilities include two language houses (French and Spanish), two cultural houses (Africana and East Asian), and six special interest houses (Leadership Education at Douglass, Human Rights, Middle East Coexistence, Environmental, Women and Business, and Women and Creativity). All are open to undergraduate women in any major and are designed to immerse them in worlds distant from their own – “to take us out of our comfort zone,” says housemate Rachel Wetter, a junior history major from Chatham.
Eunsung Lee, a doctoral student in women’s and gender studies and coordinator of the East Asian House, planned the fall 2012 syllabus around the January trip. In preparation, the travelers studied social and political issues in contemporary Thailand.
They also met several times with Natalie Jesionka, a 2007 Rutgers graduate who founded The Prizm Project - believed to be one of the first global-minded human rights education organizations for young women in the United States. A lecturer, reporter and human rights activist, Jesionka oversees education and outreach for the Children’s Organization of Southeast Asia, which played a large role in the Rutgers’ students’ experience.
The international NGO works with young girls and women in the hope of intervening before they are swept up in the region’s burgeoning sex trafficking industry, explains Ariana DasGupta, director of The Global Village and a participant on the Thailand trip.
The website humantrafficking.org describes Thailand as a “source, transit and destination” for the illicit trade, noting that migrants fleeing poverty in adjoining countries are frequent targets.
In addition to providing short-term emergency housing and social services, COSA aims to build trusting relationships between community leaders and families of at-risk young people.
It was at a COSA boarding school in Chiang Mai that the Americans – including DRC Dean Jacquelyn Litt and her family - interacted with young members of the city’s neighboring hill tribes. They not only coached them in English but also worked side-by-side to build a playground that will last long after the Rutgers contingent left.
“Our four days there really charged me up,” says Taylor Rotolo, a junior from Ringoes majoring in social work. “I feel like I left my heart with those girls. They were just so open to us, so full of love and joy.”
Many of the victims of trafficking are marginalized and vulnerable, trip participants learned, especially the semi-nomadic peoples living beyond urban areas. Free education ends at age 12, leaving many young women unprepared to make a living – and therefore vulnerable to pimps looking to staff their brothels.
“Our students came away with a more nuanced understanding of trafficking than many officials in the United States have,” DasGupta says.
She credits another Rutgers graduate with orchestrating much of the Bangkok leg of the trip: Suchitra Hiranprueck, a 2011 Douglass Society inductee, has served as an ambassador for the Thai government in a foreign service career spanning more than 35 years.
During an informal debriefing after their return, participants agreed that the experience’s true value lay in learning to appreciate another culture not only through American eyes, but also through a lens of international understanding.
“We were able to develop a lot of diverse relationships – with members of Parliament, with NGO members, with business and academic leaders, with the girls from COSA,” says Gabriela Slomicz of Toms River, a public health major who hopes to graduate in 2014. “I was surprised at how deep and abiding the connections were.”