Claire Lampen '12 received an academic grant from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program to conduct research in Germany. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College

Claire Lampen of St. Louis, Mo., received an academic grant from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program to conduct research in Germany under the auspices of the German Historical Museum.

Six Bates seniors received grants for teaching English as a foreign language, with five of them awarded English Teaching Assistantships from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program: Jeffrey Berry of Redondo Beach, Calif., who will teach in Germany; Jacob Kaplove of Novato, Calif., bound for Argentina; Leah Maciejewski of Tewksbury, Mass., heading for Poland; Rebecca Merten of Warwick, R.I., who will teach in the Slovak Republic; and Jessica Plate of New Fairfield, Conn., who’s bound for Vietnam.

The sixth teaching grant recipient is Dana Ellis of West Orange, N.J., who will teach in Austria supported by a Fulbright Austria teaching assistantship, which is funded by the Austrian government.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is funded primarily by the U.S. Department of State and sends some 1,500 U.S. citizens abroad each year.

The academic grants offer an academic year of support for study and/or research in projects of the recipients’ design. The assistantships support students who both pursue their own research and work to improve local students’ English and knowledge of the United States.

Claire Lampen

Lampen, a Bates history major and recipient of a Fulbright Study/Research grant, will partner with the German Historical Museum in Berlin to study photographs, maps and documents left behind by a soldier named Wilhelm Endemann at the conclusion of World War I.

Titled “Images of the Great War: A Soldier’s Photographic Memory,” the project is significant because of the perspective and depth of Endemann’s collection. “I propose to follow Endemann’s trail,” Lampen writes, and “to flesh out the documentary skeleton he laid out to reconstruct a cohesive and uniquely personal narrative of World War I.”

German soldiers were forbidden to have cameras on the battlefield, but many defied that regulation and took personal snapshots that have ended up in albums like Endemann’s, though few are as detailed as his.

At Bates, Lampen recently completed an honors thesis on the indoctrination of German children under the Nazi regime. In 2011, she undertook a seven-month study-abroad experience in Berlin, completing a full course load in German at several institutions including Humboldt University. She was also an intern at the German Historical Museum, for which she did translations and research for a website.

Jeffrey Berry '12 received an English Teaching Assistantship from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Jeffrey Berry

Berry, a triple major in history, German and French, first experienced Germany through a Bates Semester Abroad program in Berlin, and spent his entire junior year studying at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. He wrote his Bates honors thesis on parallels between Freud’s psychoanalysis and the output of Viennese author and dramatist Arthur Schnitzler.

During his Fulbright year, he will divide his time between teaching English and leading a digital photography course to connect with community members.

“My photography course will display life across class and cultural lines,” Berry writes in his Fulbright proposal. “The photographic medium allows students, and myself, to capture concretely notions about what is characteristic or worthy of documentation in their daily lives and the region at large — and to discuss these issues.”

After his time as an ETA he plans to pursue graduate studies in modern European history, German studies or international relations.

Dana Ellis '12 received a Fulbright Austria teaching assistantship. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Dana Ellis

Ellis, recipient of the Fulbright Austria USTA award, is a psychology major. Like Berry, Ellis was inspired to learn more about her Fulbright destination by a Bates Fall Semester Abroad program, in her case Vienna.

“I embarked on a journey to expand my knowledge beyond what I could learn in American college courses and to immerse myself in modern-day Austria,” she writes in her proposal.

Ellis was inspired by a German-language teacher who used readings from a free newspaper to steep his students in the Viennese milieu.

“Learning a language provides the tools to interact with native speakers, but without the cultural context, the language skill is far less useful,” she says. “Bridging the gap between people of different backgrounds and exchanging cultural perspectives, while recognizing the inescapable differences . . . is what motivates me to teach abroad.”

Jacob Kaplove '12 received an English Teaching Assistantship from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Jacob Kaplove

Kaplove, a psychology major, has worked closely with Lewiston’s Somali community as the program director for Refugee Volunteers, a program that promotes cross-cultural learning and exchange between Bates students and refugee families; as a researcher for Project SHIFA, an in-school program designed to promote the mental health of young Somali refugees; and as a Bonner Leader, a participant in a national program that promotes student development through community work.

He was one of two Bates students to receive the 2012 Heart & Soul Award from the Maine Campus Compact, recognizing outstanding contributions to the community.

Kaplove, who has done volunteer work in Central America, was attracted to Argentina in part because of the opportunity to work in a training college for teachers of English. This setting, he says, “will help to sustain my impact as my students will go on to teach future generations about the English language.”

In addition to teaching English in Argentina, Kaplove will work in a youth mentoring program and take courses in Spanish literature and public health. After Argentina, he plans to apply to medical school with the goal of practicing family medicine, which will allow him to continue working with Latino immigrants and refugee populations.

Leah Maciejewski '12 received an English Teaching Assistantship from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Leah Maciejewski

“My Polish heritage has never been a large part of my life,” Maciejewski writes in her Fulbright proposal. “When my great-grandparents came to America, they chose to assimilate to the culture at the expense of tradition.”

Now Maciejewski has the opportunity to rediscover her Polish heritage while indulging her passion for teaching languages. “The Fulbright will allow me to do just that while also sharing my culture and experience as an American with my Polish peers.”

Maciejewski, a double major in English and Spanish, has been an accomplished student and volunteer, working in English Language Learning classrooms in Lewiston. She’s also respected for her athletic accomplishments, having captained the varsity softball team this spring and been honored as most valuable player, as a Bates Scholar-Athlete and as a member of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association All-Academic Scholar Athlete Team.

After her Fulbright commitment, Maciejewski will pursue a law degree in preparation for a career in public education policy. “I seek to explore the opportunities for bilingual policies in early education and consider new models of research and practice.”

Rebecca Merten '12 received an English Teaching Assistantship from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Rebecca Merten

Merten, a history major, will travel to the Slovak Republic eager to continue cultivating her interest in education and to be immersed in a country foreign to her. She is “seeking to place myself in an environment that offers a level stage for cultural exchange, with everyone learning about a new culture.”

Merten brings considerable experience as an educator. While studying in Mexico, she assisted in teaching middle-school English classes. “While the teachers were trained, none were native English speakers, and I was a resource for both the students and teachers.”

In the Slovak Republic, she hopes to foster intercultural exchange through cooking and film clubs. As a student of history, she adds, “What interests me most about the Slovak Republic is how it has maintained its cultural identity while being at the crossroads of various military and cultural invasions.”

Upon her return, Merten hopes to remain involved in education and history.

Jessica Plate '12 received an English Teaching Assistantship from the U.S. Fulbright Student Program. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen/Bates College.

Jessica Plate

A history major, Plate minored in German and education at Bates, and hopes to become a teacher, a goal aligned with her interest in teaching English in Vietnam.

Through her education coursework, Plate amassed nearly 400 hours of student teaching and other fieldwork during her Bates career. “Some of my experience was in an English Language Learners classroom, where I worked with Somali refugees,” she notes.

As a student of history, Plate believes that this is a definitive time for Vietnam. That nation, she writes, “is surrounded by two majorly developing nations, India and China.

“Historians and policymakers — as well as the Vietnamese themselves — all have the same important questions: Where will Vietnam, whose third-largest trading partner is the U.S., stand as its neighbors grow? How well will Vietnam be able to imitate the Chinese model and develop a capitalist economy with a socialist government? How will Vietnam maintain successful relations with the U.S.?”

Attending Bates with support from a prestigious Thomas J. Watson Memorial Scholarship, Plate spent her entire junior year abroad, dividing it between Austria and India. She feels emotionally and intellectually well-prepared for this next foray into an unfamiliar culture. “My objective is to broaden the horizons of my students, so that they too may want to become cultural ambassadors one day.”

Ana Carbatti plays Iara in Sérgio Bianchi's 2009 film "The Tenants."

The Global Lens series of international films returns to Bates College this month starting with a screening of Brazilian director Sérgio Bianchi’s 2009 film The Tenants at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 27, in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St.

All at 7 p.m., Global Lens screenings take place at Bates Mondays and Wednesdays through April 2. Monday screenings take place in Olin 104, and Wednesday screenings in Olin 105.

Screenings are open to the public at no cost. The series is presented by the Bates College Museum of Art. For more information, please contact 207-786-6158.

Winner of the Best Screenplay award at the 2010 Festival do Rio in Brazil, The Tenants depicts a working-class family whose new next-door neighbors are young criminals. Building tension with stylish sequences that blend reality and fevered imagination, Bianchi’s thriller offers a shrewd portrait of the social and psychological impacts of urban violence. It depicts a city of São Paulo beset — yet also aroused — by a permeating atmosphere of destruction.

Featuring 10 award-winning films in this series, the Global Lens project is designed to promote cross-cultural understanding through cinema. It is produced by the Global Film Initiative, a U.S. nonprofit that supports independent film from Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.

GFI awards grants to deserving filmmakers and supports the touring film series, whose other venues include Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

“Global Lens brings the world to Lewiston, giving viewers fresh perspectives on issues that confront people around the globe,” says Anthony Shostak, education curator for the Bates College Museum of Art. “Seeing them with other members of the community, as opposed to sitting at home, provides an expanded opportunity to discuss these issues.”

Here’s the schedule for the remaining winter-spring Global Lens screenings:

• Feb. 29: Dooman River depicts intensifying tensions between illegal North Korean immigrants and rural villagers on the Chinese side of the frozen river-border through the eyes of 12-year-old Chang-ho. While Chang-ho and his community are initially sympathetic toward refugees, mounting suspicion leaves Chang-ho torn between compassion and conflict. Directed by Chinese director Zhang Lu, the intricately detailed film has won multiple awards including the Jury Prize, Paris Cinema International Film Festival. (China, 2009, 89 min.)
• March 5: Soul of Sand is a suspenseful and eccentric thriller, directed and written by New Delhi native Sidharth Srinivasan, that explores the dark intersection between Indian modernity and tradition. A powerless watchman who guards an abandoned mine reluctantly helps his landlord’s daughter and her lower-caste lover escape when she is offered to her father’s business partner as his wife. When a masked killer is dispatched to hunt the pair down, all are immersed in a visually striking world of danger, honor and hierarchy. (India, 2010, 98 min.)
• March 7: Opera Jawa blends images of contemporary Indonesia with traditional Javanese dance, music and myth to tell the tale of Seyto and Siti — a husband and wife content until the local butcher seduces Siti. This sets the stage for an epic battle in lush forests and pristine beaches, based on “The Abduction of Sita” from the Hindu epic “The Ramayana.” Directed by Indonesian Garin Nugroho. (Indonesia, 2006, 120 min.)
• March 12: Belvedere, set in a refugee camp after 15 years of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, paints a rich and uncommon portrait of the aftermath of war. Ruveyda is a widow who takes solace in routine: caring for her extended family and searching for the remains of her husband and son. But she is tested when her nephew is selected to participate in a reality show in a former enemy enclave. Directed by Ahmed Imamovic, the film explores themes of patience, faith, love and forgiveness. (Bosnia-Herzegovina, 2010, 90 min.)
• March 14: The Light Thief is a contemporary tale of good and evil set in a wind-swept valley in Kyrgyzstan. Director Aktan Arym Kubat plays Mr. Light, a humble, trusting and compassionate village electrician who strikes a suspicious deal with a wealthy developer. With the dream of supplying wind-generated electricity to the valley and employment to his destitute neighbors, Mr. Light embodies goodwill and decency in a corrupt and changing world. (Kyrgyzstan, 2010, 80 min.)
• March 19: Street Days uses humor and gritty realism to explore desperation, decline and moral dilemmas in modern Georgia. Checkie, a middle-aged and unemployed heroin addict, is blackmailed by corrupt policemen into introducing the son of their wealthy enemy to drugs. Making increasingly bad decisions, Checkie reunites with his wife to face his deteriorating options before a penultimate choice. Directed by Levan Koghuashvili. (Georgia, 2010, 86 min.)
• March 21: The White Meadows a blend of fable and political critique set on the shores of a salt lake, follows Rahmat, a boatman who listens to people’s sorrows and collects their tears in vials to pour into the sea. But he remains powerless against a community that, in misguided attempts to appease the gods, inflicts multiple brutalities. Director Mohammad Rasoulof’s mesmerizing and surreal film won the AsiaAfrica Special Jury Prize and the Muhr AsiaAfrica Award for Best Director at the Dubai International Film Festival. (Iran, 2009, 93 min.)
• March 26: The Invisible Eye explores surveillance, repression and insurrection during the 1980s military regime in Argentina. An assistant teacher at an elite Buenos Aires private school, the lonely and obedient María Teresa adopts the school’s totalitarian oversight policies. But she soon finds herself amidst a breakdown in structure and discipline at the school that mirrors the rebellion outside. Directed by Diego Lerman. (Argentina, 2010, 95 min.)
• April 2: A Useful Life is a universally appealing tribute to the soul of cinema, set in Uruguay and filmed in black and white. When a local cinema closes due to dwindling support, loyal employee Jorge is forced to find a new passion and navigate his world beyond the screen. Director Federico Veiroj received an award for Best Director at the Valdivia International Film Festival. (Uruguay, 2010, 63 min.)

Tiarra Abell ’12, a double major in Spanish and anthropology, is spending her December break in Ecuador doing research.

As the end of the semester approaches, Bates students are looking forward to a break from late nights in the library and a chance to spend the holidays with friends and family. But for senior Tiarra Abell of Louisville, Ky., winter break is a time to get some real work done.

At 4 a.m. Dec. 10, just hours after her last class of the semester, Abell began her journey back to Ecuador, where she spent her junior semester.

“A reality is coming true that I never imagined,” Abell said. “Although I didn’t want it to, I expected my time in Ecuador to end. But within just six months I’m able to go back!”

Along with 11 other seniors, Abell received a Barlow Thesis Research Grant. Established by David Barlow ’79, the grant’s goal is to enhance the study-abroad experience.

“I really like the Barlow thesis grant program, as it helps link the study abroad experience to the student’s academic program at Bates,” said Stephen Sawyer, director of off-campus study. “It allows students to return to their study-abroad country and interact with that setting in a more targeted way, building on their first experience.”

A double major in Spanish and anthropology, Abell is writing two senior theses, both investigating the lives of the Afro-Choteño community in Chota, a rural village with a population of 800. While living with a host family in Chota last spring, Abell was struck by the warmth and generosity of the Afro-Choteños despite the poverty in which they live.

“That was the first time in my life that I have experienced extreme poverty, in its real form,” said Abell. “The way they accepted me into their culture because I looked like them was very powerful to me. Just because I am black and I was doing well, they were very proud of me, as if I was one of their own.”

The timing for the return visit could not be better. After witnessing Easter in Chota, Abell was inspired to write her Spanish thesis on the role of faith in the lives of the devoutly Catholic Afro-Choteños. Abell hopes that spending Christmas in Chota will allow her to gather valuable interviews and photographs for her thesis.

After Bates, Abell plans to pursue a career in medicine. While in Chota, she volunteered at the local health clinic. She will return to the clinic to gather more field notes for her anthropology thesis on the economic and racial inequalities affecting medical treatment in Chota.

“This is a great opportunity,” she said. “Now I not only have volunteer experience in the medical field, but I have it in another culture.”

Most of her time will be spent in Chota, but Abell will visit Quito and Otavalo to gather books and articles that are not available in the United States on the Afro-Choteños. During this time she plans to meet Carla Guerron, the author of one of her primary sources, El Color de la Panela (“The Color of Brown Sugar”).

Abell will miss spending the holidays with her family in Louisville. “This is the first Christmas I have missed with my family, but being able to share and give back to people who don’t have nearly as much—who can’t even conceptualize the amount of things I have—brings me back to the true meaning of Christmas that my parents and family instilled in me.”

While home for Thanksgiving, Abell added, “my best friend’s sister gave me a big bag full of toys to give to the kids in Chota knowing that they would go to good use.”

– Erica Long ’12

Emily Grady ’10 has received an English Teaching Assistantship from the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. These grants support recipients in positions as teaching assistants abroad who work with local students on their English language skills and knowledge of the United States. As the same time, the teaching assistants pursue individual research.

Grady will teach in Argentina. As an environmental studies major at Bates, she co-founded two student environmental organizations, lobbied Maine’s senators for comprehensive climate legislation and co-founded an environmental leadership training program for Bates students.

Now, as she teaches English in Argentina, she hopes also to continue her environmental advocacy, both with local organizations and, hopefully, in her own curriculum.

“I hope to partner with an environmental organization or government agency to first, learn about the ways environmental issues are perceived, discussed and managed in Argentina,” she says, “and second, to couple that knowledge with my experience working in sustainability education.”

The Fulbright recipients are (follow the links to learn more):
Ana Brzezinska, a 2011 graduate, and Anne Connell, 2010, both of whom received assistantships for teaching English as a foreign language in Germany;
Emily Grady, a 2010 graduate who received the equivalent grant for teaching English in Argentina;
Peter Marsters, a 2009 graduate whose fellowship will support his research into energy use in China;
and Rachel Stern, a 2007 graduate who will study business and management in Spain.

Fulbright is the flagship international educational exchange sponsored by the U.S. government. It is designed to increase mutual understanding between the peoples of the United States and of other countries. The program is funded primarily by an annual congressional appropriation to the U.S. Department of State.

During a community dinner on the eve of her departure from the remote Peruvian community of Ch’allmachimpana, Hannah Porst asked residents of this mountain village how she could thank them for their hospitality.

There was some initial talk about providing soccer shoes — but what we really need, they told her, is a school.

“I can’t make any promises,” Porst, then a Bates College junior studying abroad, replied during that April 2010 dinner. “This is a huge undertaking.”

But Porst, of Madison, Wis., couldn’t let it go. And upon her return to the U.S., she explored the idea with advisers including family and, at Bates, William Hiss, executive director for international advancement. Hiss suggested she apply for a Davis Projects for Peace award.

Now Porst has received a $10,000 Projects for Peace grant — covering a third of the cost of her initiative and making it possible for the school to be built this summer.

Founded by philanthropist Kathryn W. Davis in 2007 on the occasion of her 100th birthday, Projects for Peace awards support initiatives worldwide that focus on conflict resolution, reconciliation, building understanding and breaking down barriers that cause conflict. The recipients have included Bates students each year since the program’s inception.

The 25-student primary school in Ch’allmachimpana will serve the cause of peace, Porst explains, by providing an education that will make young people less vulnerable to exploitation if they leave their village for mainstream society. “We’re making available aspects of modernity that lead to an improved quality of life,” she says, “while helping the children retain roots in the traditional world.”

Learn more about the school: www.challmaschool.org/

Ch’allmachimpana is a village in Q’eros, a region whose people are recognized as a “national living patrimony” because of the continuity of their ancient indigenous traditions. They are subsistence llama and alpaca herders, potato farmers and weavers living without dependable water supplies or electricity.

Modernity is encroaching on this ancient way of life as roads open the region to the rest of the world, and as young people leave for the city. As Porst explains, “There’s just a tough life in Cuzco” — the nearest major city — “for a lot of kids who go there.”

About the award, Porst says she feels “so honored and so happy for the people of Ch’allmachimpana that everything is coming together,” she says. “It’s unbelievable that this process started less than a year ago and it’s already a reality.”

In fact, classes are already in session in temporary quarters in the village. With residents having a decisive role in the curriculum, the school will teach the children to read and write in both Quechua, their native tongue, and Spanish, preparing them to interact with the modern world while sustaining their traditions.

The school will ultimately serve as a village center for education, nutrition, health care and economic opportunity.

The permanent school will be built during the summer. Its total cost includes $7,500 for building materials for the school building itself, $600 for a photovoltaic solar panel and $200 for a greenhouse.

Another part of the project, still without a price tag, is a water purification system: Water-borne parasites are a leading contributor to the local 47 percent mortality rate among children aged 5 and under.

Porst has raised $17,000 for the project, including the Projects for Peace award. The Mountain Fund, an NGO, is serving as a conduit for donations.

Porst graduates from Bates in May as a double major in Spanish and art, and will spend the following year in Peru, much of the time in Ch’allmachimpana. She first learned of the village from a documentary film made by one of her advisers during her semester in Peru.

“Immediately after I saw the documentary I said, ‘I want to go there,’ ” Porst says.”I was so touched by the people that I met onscreen.”

Students from more than 90 campuses will receive Projects for Peace grants totaling more than $1 million in summer 2011 for projects in all regions of the world — projects that focus on conflict resolution, reconciliation, building understanding and breaking down barriers that cause conflict.

A complete list of the participating schools and projects, as well as a summary of all previous projects and a video interview with Davis from 2006, is available on the program’s website.

The Global Lens series of films from around the world continues at Bates College with Leo’s Room by Uruguayan director Enrique Buchichio, showing at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15, and at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, at the Ronj, 32 Frye St.

Hosted by the Bates College Museum of Art, the series continues on Fridays and Saturdays throughout the fall. Admission is $5. Leo’s Room is in Spanish with English subtitles (92 min.). For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The Global Film Initiative produces the annual series in an effort to promote cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences. The initiative believes that “a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice.”

Buchichio’s affirming coming-of-age tale is set in the heart of Uruguay’s capital, Montevideo. The affable but secretly troubled Leo wraps himself in the comfort of his small rented room, unmotivated to finish his college thesis or find a job, and content with infrequent visits from his girlfriend. After their relationship ends, Leo begins to break out of his shell by cruising the Internet for a new companion. However, it isn’t until he has a chance reunion with a classmate that he is forced to consider the true meaning of his reclusive lifestyle, and a future outside the metaphoric safety of his room.

Made in 2009, Leo’s Room is Buchichio’s first feature film. In 2005, he was selected for the Talent Campus Buenos Aires competition, organized by the Universidad del Cine in cooperation with the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2007 he released the short Noche Fría.

The Global Lens series of films from around the world continues at Bates College with Gods by Peruvian director Josué Méndez, showing at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 1, and 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 4, in the Ronj, Bates’ student-run coffeehouse, 32 Frye St.

Hosted by the Bates College Museum of Art, the series continues on Fridays and Mondays throughout the fall. Admission is $5. Made in 2008, Gods is in Spanish with English subtitles (91 min.). For more information, please contact 207-786-6135 or this olinarts@bates.edu.

The Global Film Initiative produces the series in an effort to promote cross-cultural understanding through the medium of cinema by showing little-known, skillfully made independent films to American audiences. The initiative believes that “a powerful, authentic narrative can foster trust and respect between disparate cultures and mitigate the social and psychological impact of cultural prejudice.”

In Méndez’s stylishly composed second feature, Elisa, soon to be the wife of a wealthy industrialist, is eager to shed her working-class background in favor of the opulence of her fiancé’s elite lifestyle.

To her disappointment, she soon realizes her hopes to live a life of domestic splendor must also include her future stepchildren: Diego, who is hounded by his overbearing father and Andrea, Diego’s party-girl sister and the object of both his desire and disgust.

As Elisa embraces her new life of lavish parties and beachfront estates, Diego and Andrea rebel against their upper-class upbringing, setting the stage for an ironic contrast of fate and ambition in this biting satire on upper-crust wealth and privilege.

Méndez was born in Lima, Peru, in 1976. He graduated with a degree in Film studies and Latin American Studies from Yale University in 1998. His first film, Días de Santiago, won more than 35 international awards. In addition to his work as executive producer and editor for films, he has written and directed for Peruvian television, advertising and theater.

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In Valparaiso, Chile, Jon Steuber ’08, Henry Myer ’08 and Wiley Todd ’08 teach surfing — and much more — to local children

Photographs by Jon Steuber ’08

If your notion of surf culture begins and ends with Jeff Spicoli, the cosmically disenfranchised surfer dude from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, then catch what Jon Steuber ’08, Henry Myer ’08, and Wiley Todd ’08 accomplished last winter and spring with their Valpo Surf Project, an after-school educational program for children in Valparaíso, Chile.

The Bates friends, joined by local resident Andres Ponce Morales and others, taught swimming and surfing to about a dozen Chilean girls and boys. And, during required classroom sessions, they also taught the youngsters about the local marine environment and tutored them in speaking English.

“We used surfing as a tool to teach self-determination and personal development,” Myer says.

Steuber, Myer, and Todd founded the Valpo Surf Project after learning something about Valparaíso during Bates study-abroad programs or, in Myer’s case, from his post-graduation move to the seaside city. The alums saw barriers that kept poor children from experiencing the ocean. With surfing, the barrier was expensive boards and wetsuits.

“These children see the ocean every day but many never have the opportunity to experience it,” says Myer.

More than just surfing instruction, the Valpo Surf Project seeks to connect children to their local environment, and weekly beach cleanups were part of the routine.

The Valpo Surf Project is highly unusual, if not unique, Myer says. “The community’s response was a mixed bag of fascination, gratitude, and skepticism,” says Myer, who will return in September to continue the program. “It’s an evolving dynamic.” — HJB