If you want to learn more about the LSJ/JSIS/DIS ST Study Abroad to Jamaica focused on disability, aging, and development, there will be Info Sessions this week on both Wednesday and Thursday (February 8th and 9th) at 2:30 p.m. in Smith M261.
This Early Fall Start program, which can be taken for credit in either LSJ, JSIS, or Disability Studies, focuses on the lived experience of persons with disabilities, older persons, and others in Jamaica by interviewing, volunteering, and participating in the activities of grassroots associations, non-profits, government agencies, and international organizations. On a daily basis, we will meet with human rights advocates, educators, policymakers, and, most importantly, organizations led by persons with disabilities and/or older persons themselves, to try to understand what it means to live with a disability or as an older person within the context of a developing country and the ways in which disabled persons and older persons themselves are agents of social change. Importantly, Jamaica was the first country to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the first Caribbean country to develop a senior citizens policy. They have also made both groups central to their plans to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Therefore, this is an excellent program for investigating how international human rights treaties and international development activities are being (or not being...) implemented locally.
As a group, the program moves around the island by spending one week in Jamaica's capital Kingston, one week on its northern coast in Discovery Bay, and one week in the mountains outside Mandeville living in the Jamaica Deaf Village, where Jamaican Sign Language is the primary language.
To learn more, learn more, come to the Info Session next week, contact Professor Stephen Meyers at sjmeyers@uw.edu, or go to the application page on the Study Abroad website: https://studyabroad.washington.edu/index.cfm?FuseAction=Programs.ViewProgramAngular&id=11819