Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
PNT Staff Writer
The destination is Wusuta, Africa, for 18 public school teachers who will spend 28 days studying a culture in a place where running water and electricity are considered luxuries.
Eastern New Mexico University’s Family and Consumer Sciences Department has received a grant from the United States Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program. That grant will allow participants the opportunity to gain knowledge about the Ghanaian culture, history, geography, religion, and educational systems through classroom and field work.
The Projects Abroad Program provides grants to support overseas projects in training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies by teachers, students and faculty engaged in a common endeavor.
ENMU Family and Consumer Sciences Assistant Professor Caryl Johnson is among those planning to make the trip.
She said she loves to travel and has already visited a village in Ghana.
“When I got back from Ghana the first time my husband asked me how many elephants and tigers did I see running around and I told him none,” said Johnson. She said the village where teachers will be staying is not a wild jungle as it’s often portrayed on television.
“I think this experience will help eliminate some of the stereotypes about their culture since teachers will experience first hand the lifestyle and education system of the African people.”
The whole idea behind the program is to give teachers the opportunity to gain as much information about another culture for the purpose of bringing that knowledge back and sharing it in U.S. classrooms. Teachers will be staying in a farming village called Wusuta, located about 3 1/2 hours away from the capital of Guana.
For more information about the Projects Abroad Program, visit the program’s Web site: