Join us for an interactive session with Balance Works, an Ecuador-based experiential education organization that designs and hosts transformative, field-based learning experiences across Ecuador’s diverse regions — including the Andes, Amazon, and Galápagos Islands.
This session will introduce immersive summer practicum opportunities for Franklin Switzerland students looking to expand their sense of global citizenship through experiential learning.
Students can choose their area of focus, such as:
- 🌱 Environmental sustainability
- 🎥 Creative communication and storytelling
- 🌍 Culture, art, and Intercultural engagement
These 15–30 day programs are designed through our Global Citizenship Ambassadors Program, which combines a shared core component for all students — focused on global competence, ethical travel, cultural adaptation, and critical reflection — with an opportunity to specialize in a focus area through project-based learning and fieldwork. Below are some possible themes students can focus:
🌿 1. Amazon Stewardship & Indigenous Knowledge
Location: Amazon region
Theme: Indigenous governance, forest conservation, biodiversity
Highlights:
- Stay with Indigenous communities protecting their territories
- Explore plant medicine, ancestral practices, and ecological worldviews
- Participate in reforestation or conservation fieldwork
- Engage with local youth & women’s initiatives in community tourism
Ideal Ambassador Track: Cultural Engagement Ambassador / Ecology & Rights of Nature
🌎 2. Global Citizenship & Language Immersion
Location: Cotacachi, Quito, and surrounding areas
Theme: Spanish immersion, global competence, cultural adaptation
Highlights:
- Intensive Spanish classes + homestay experience
- Cultural workshops on Andean cosmovision and interculturality
- Local collaboration projects (e.g. schools, NGOs, cooperatives)
- Deep reflection on personal and cultural identity
Ideal for students across all tracks
🎨 3. Creative Culture & Community in Yunguilla
Locations: Quito & Yunguilla (Cloud Forest)
Theme: Arts, identity & sustainability
Live and collaborate in the ecotourism community of Yunguilla, where conservation meets culture. Explore how local art, storytelling, and collective memory support sustainable development.
Highlights:
- Participate in an art tour and cultural mapping activity in Quito
- Co-create mural or photo projects with local youth
- Learn traditional crafts and their cultural meanings
- Engage in forest walks, community life & reflection
Ideal Ambassador Track: Creative Storytelling & Sustainability
🍫 4. Sustainability in Action: Stories from the Source
Locations: Quito, Highlands, & Cacao Communities
Theme: Food systems, sustainability & communication
Explore how B Corp-certified cacao and dairy producers in Ecuador communicate their mission and impact. Discover how sustainability is practiced — and shared — from farm to shelf.
Highlights:
- Visit different markets in Quito to explore food stories
- Visit a Kichwa small producing farm in the Andes
- Learn about the bean-to-bar cacao journey
- Create photo stories or interviews with producers
Ideal Ambassador Track: Sustainability & Communication
💡 Why These Work for Franklin Students:
- Blend academic inquiry with field-based reality
- Include interdisciplinary frameworks: environment, development, media, ethics
- Offer customizable focus areas within a strong umbrella of Global Citizenship
- Emphasize reflection, agency, and ethical engagement
Our goal is to co-create meaningful, place-based learning experiences that meet students where they are — intellectually, culturally, and personally — while helping them grow into globally aware, ethically engaged individuals.
✨ Come learn more about what’s possible, ask questions, and discover how Ecuador can become your classroom.
Please contact Ebonie Rayford for more information at erayford@fus.edu.