Hello! I am Sarah, I am pursuing a BS in Environmental Science and Sustainability with a double major in Parks, Tourism, and Recreation Management. For my beyond the classroom experience I chose to do a semester abroad in Valparaíso, Chile in the spring of 2025. My main goal for going abroad was to focus on my global theme of Resources and Sustainability and my global challenge of wondering how do we preserve cultural values while also focusing on sustainable development.

I found that my global challenge related to my experience because Chile is still a developing country. While it has strong infrastructure and a growing economy, they have a prime opportunity for sustainable development, but Chile also has indigenous populations that have slowly being losing their cultural identity and values since the 1880’s.

While in Chile I took 2 courses that related to my global challenge. One class was on Cross Cultural Interactions with the Mapuche People (One of the indigenous groups in Chile), the other was Sustainability in Latin America.

Due to the fact that my global challenge directly involves other cultures I not only spent time in the local Chilean culture, but also spent a fair amount of time learning and experiencing the Mapuche culture and customs. These interactions gave me a wider lens on how we can interact with different cultures and how dominating a western ideal can overpower a more traditional native way of life. Many Mapuche communities are nearly self-sustainable, don’t often use modern day medical treatment, live in houses they built themselves and are not a big apartment building. The Mapuche have different values of how they want to live life, and are more spiritually connected than most Americans and I am. They have rituals that they partake in year after year, some rituals reunite communities from all over the country.

From a sustainability aspect, I learned more about how these developing countries are struggling to keep up with the growing economy of the U.S. while not sacrificing their natural environment. There are these areas called sacrifice zones, and they are areas that a factory, mine, extraction site are to harvest or sequester materials needed to make different items to help the country grow in its infrastructure. Some areas in the north of Chile mine copper and lithium which are essential materials for the Green Energy Revolution. However the mining of these materials is actual on indigenous lands and the runoff from these factories is negatively impacting the health of the indigenous people in these areas. This harm directly has an effect on the indigenous population.

In a conversation I had with a Mapuche community, the daughter of the Lonko (chief), mentioned that with less Mapuche people it is harder to maintain their rituals, and with a lack of regular rituals that ultimately makes it harder for her family and community to maintain their cultural values. She also mentioned that there are some efforts to implement education programs to teach their language which also hold so much value in their culture. These teaching programs also include Mapuche practices and knowledge. The issue is that many of these programs are at the University level and are not easily accessible to much of the populations.

These conversations with Mapuche people and experience with sustainable efforts in Chile gave me a better perspective on my global theme and challenge because cultural values and sustainable development are clearly both trying to be improved but it seems as if they are ultimately competing with each other. In my opinion they should be working together rather than against each other. If the Mapuche or really any indigenous population had a say in how their community or city should develop, I think that would make all the difference in protecting the environment, but this would also prioritize the indigenous values because they would be the underlying force for the motivations of development.

After going through this experience not only impacted how I thought about my global challenge but also aided in my leadership skills. I put myself in an uncomfortable situation, I barely knew spanish, had never immersed myself in a brand new culture, moved in with a host family. All of these things led me to be a better leader, I had to adapt and learn quick in order to survive. I also found an aspect of confidence within myself, I often stuck out like a sore thumb in public and Chile. Eventually I realized that if I am already being noticed then why not be proud of it. Moving in with my host family and having to learn a new language helped with my communication. I can’t say it was easy at first to learn and communicate with not only my host mom but other Chileans, but over the 4 months and a lot of spanish class I am able to hold a conversation and could talk fluently with my host mom.

Learning so much about myself from this experience really put me in a position to question what is next, in all aspects of my life. What else am I going to do to grow in leadership? What am I going to do help support sustainable development? How can I help other cultures maintain and grow strength with their values?