BUILD:Nicaragua seeks to create mutually beneficial long-term partnerships with locally-based, socially minded organizations in Nicaragua through summer internships with these organizations. During the school year students will prepare for their experiences through intensive study in areas of development theory, with a special focus on the process of design, monitoring and evaluation, and through the sharing of the experiences had by students returning from a summer working with an organization.
Building Understanding through International Learning and Development (BUILD) is an interdisciplinary student-led program of the Institute for Global Leadership at Tufts University. BUILD seeks to educate and immerse students in the theory and practice of sustainable development by partnering with rural communities and NGOs in the developing world to research and implement sustainable initiatives for human, social, and economic development. BUILD: Nicaragua has recently completed a transition from a project in Santa Anita, Guatemala that worked on income generation, sustainable agriculture, computer learning, and eco-tourism. The Nicaragua projects instead follow an internship structure, allowing students the opportunity to coordinate their academic interests and capabilities with the various projects implemented by our various NGO partners in the Matagalpa-Jinotega region of Nicaragua.
There is no standard profile of the BUILD: Nicaragua student. We integrate undergraduates not only from diverse majors within Liberal Arts, but from across Tufts University’s various schools, combining methodologies and analytical approaches from the engineering, anthropological, political, economic, literary, cultural and medical perspectives. Regardless of career path, all BUILD students share a noticeable motivation and passion for learning in sustainable development, understanding that their work is of highest stakes, affecting sustainable, innovative change in the developing world.
