2024-25 Alternative Breaks
AB usually have capacity for a maximum of ten student participants, two student leaders, and two staff/faculty advisors per AB. Due to the growing interest in AB, not everyone who applies will be able to go on an AB during a given academic year. Nevertheless, AB strives to ensure that every AB provides a learning experience to all its participants.
As of 2023, AB and its community partners have started to tie its social justice focus(es) to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
2024-25 Alternative Breaks
Winter AB | January 3-11, 2025
AB El Salvador | $1,550
SDGs: Clean Water and Sanitation / Reduced Inequalities / Climate Action / Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
On this AB, you'll get to have conversations with different speakers, grassroots organization leaders, rural community members, and youth groups. Participants will learn about and humanize immigration and its root causes and climate change. They will also learn about impact it is his having in the Central American region, on economic and social inequalities, women's rights, human rights, historic memory, the civil war and post-era, and nonviolence as well as its importance in how one carries out dialogues and actions about issues affecting our communities.
Spring ABs | Feb. 28-March 8, 2025
AB Belize | $1,550
SDGs: Quality Education / Decent Work and Economic Growth / Responsible Consumption and Production
On this AB, participants will get to focus on education justice and its impact on marginalized communities. Taking note from Jesuit tradition through work with the Jesuit college in Belize City, students will learn how to center social justice through their educational experience, such as teaching “the whole person.” This AB will also help participants cultivate a knowledge of education through the Jesuit mission of advancing faith through the promotion of justice.
AB Guatemala | $1,550
SDGs: Good Health and Well-Being / Quality Education / Reduced Inequalities
On this AB, participants will get to experience Guatemala's hospitality firsthand and engage directly with Guatemalans who have different perspectives on education, health, and wellbeing. Participants will also visit community partners to learn about land tenure, sustainable agriculture, (im)migration, and a range of economic and educational development initiatives. Additionally, participants will learn about Guatemala's rich history and how it shapes the current social-political situation. Participants will also learn how the Mayan cosmovision frames health and well-being and will have an opportunity to observe/participate in a Mayan ceremony.
AB Puerto Rico | $1,550
SDGs: Zero Hunger / Good Health and Well-Being / Responsible Consumption and Production
On this AB, participants will get to explore the food system in Puerto Rico and learn from hands-on experiences how community-based initiatives in Puerto Rico are pioneering the road to reaching food sovereignty. Together with locals, partner agroecological farms and community members, participants will engage in service-learning projects such as farm rehabilitation, organic food production, agroforestry conservation, and rainwater management. Participants will not only learn sustainability techniques from hands-on experience, but also understand what it means to be of service, and how to invoke a service mindset in their everyday lives.
Summer AB | May 18–June 1, 2025
AB South Africa | $2,150
SDGs: No Poverty / Good Health and Well-Being / Peace Justice and Strong Institutions
On this AB, participants will get to hear about the legacies of Apartheid* and the liberation struggle of South Africans as they learn how everyday people worked to overturn and dismantle racial segregation and minority rule. Participants will hear stories from locals, community experts and organizations that have been, and continue to be, committed to improving and strengthening their communities and country. Participants will also be invited to consider how U.S. citizens have struggled for equal rights and liberation from oppressive systems as well as compare and contrast differences and similarities among the two nations.
*Apartheid: A white supremacist system in which black citizens were forcefully removed from their homes, restricted and confined within tribal homelands according to their ethnicity, while whites occupied towns and cities and controlled the resources. Though Apartheid officially ended in the early 1990’s, the impacts of the oppressive system remain and impact many sectors of society.