As important as the projects you will do, perhaps more so, is the context of your community service in Guadeloupe: cross-cultural learning and friendship exchange with the people of Petite Anse through working together on community-identified projects.

Service in Guadeloupe does not meet pressing, debilitating or crippling needs as in most other VISIONS programs. You will not build homes for people trapped in cyclical poverty, or schools or health facilities for marginalized Guadeloupeans. Guadeloupe is officially an Overseas Region of France, an integral part of the French Republic, one of 26 official regions of France. Therefore, Guadeloupeans lawfully enjoy the rights and social services afforded to all French citizens. Most Guadeloupeans live modestly, many live more humbly. None are homeless or left to live in squalor, neglected by their government. Guadeloupe’s government must provide basic health care to all (albeit the quality of care may be inconsistent depending on one’s resources), must respond to housing needs, provide education and public services. You will not see dire poverty or a dramatic absence of public service resources that can be seen in some other Lesser Antilles countries.

You can be assured, however, that your service in Guadeloupe is real and appreciated, filling gaps in and meeting the needs of Petite Anse. Guadeloupe projects historically have included renovating community centers, establishing and/or clearing debris from community parks, creating cement-covered paths inside the local cemetery, paths that before were reduced to mud after rains; renovating schools, building playgrounds, creating many community murals--with local artists’ input-- trailblazing in the National forest, constructing petanque courts, benches and gazebos, creating and maintaining community gardens, re-constructing dilapidated public buildings.

As always we’ll help supervise a day program for roughly 30 local children and youth, offering simple English lessons at the Petite Anse library. We’ll help tend Monsieur Gerard’s community medicinal garden, while learning about the native plants we are helping cultivate. The garden yields bois d’inde to soothe coughs, colds and headaches, citronella and other herbs used in essential oils given freely to local folks but sold to the occasional tourist. We have been tapped to construct a lean-to shade structure at the central soccer field, build benches for a few neighborhood parks, and construct more picnic tables at public spaces,

In our increasingly globalized world one important way to serve is to develop personal relationships with people from other countries and an appreciation for diversity across cultures. This is the objective of your service in Guadeloupe.