Students pack a lot in on summer trips to Asia
Going to places like Sri Lanka and Nepal allows students and faculty members to conduct research and help with community projects that will benefit the people in both developing countries while also providing an avenue for students’ individual growth.
Even after enduring 18 hours’ worth of flights and then dealing with heat, mosquitoes, and a slightly upset stomach while adjusting to the local cuisine, Hannah Garbutt still would love to go back to Sri Lanka.
“It was the most special trip of my life,” Garbutt said. “I’m still riding the high of how amazing it was.”
Garbutt, a graduate student from Dallas pursuing a master’s degree in geography, was one of several students and faculty members from the College of Natural Resources and Environment who used the summer to conduct research and to use their knowledge to assist with community-based projects in south Asia. She and another student, Ph.D. candidate Sithuni Mimasha, went with Eranga Galappaththi, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, to research environmental and health challenges among Indigenous people in Sri Lanka while another group went to central Nepal to help with the construction of an irrigation canal.
Such trips extend the university's impact across the globe.
“They [the students] can see how a developing world looks, the people and the lifestyles, how they spend their lives and what are the resources that they live with,” said Santosh Rijal, collegiate associate professor in the Department of Geography who helped lead the Nepal trip. “They can see an underdeveloped part of the world and the culture, the languages, and the lifestyles and see how few resources those people have. … They are doing services in a particular country, and it will, I think, make a bigger impact in their coming years.”
Garbutt had once teamed with Galappaththi, a native of Sri Lanka, on a systematic literature review paper, which sparked her interest of Sri Lanka and Indigenous people. That and her interest in women’s issues ultimately led to her spending three weeks in Sri Lanka doing field work for her thesis, which centers on understanding how Indigenous women experience and respond to environmental challenges. She also looked at government involvement, financial constraints, and social/cultural norms.
She conducted 32 interviews among people from six villages.
“Ultimately, there are a few outcomes that I hope will come from this,” Garbutt said. “The first is generally just raising awareness about Indigenous women, and then Indigenous women in Sri Lanka because it’s an underrepresented area in the literature.
“And then I’m hoping in the future to continue working with them and do some empowerment initiatives, and then also get the attention of other stakeholders, maybe some NGOs [nongovernment organizations] to try and help the situation there. But then also just having them as a case study can help, hopefully, other researchers and others doing work in other places as we move further into the future.”
Her work builds on that of Galappaththi, who has long done research in his native country and now is part of a broad international coalition that focuses on the environmental-food-health nexus among Indigenous people. He leads the south Asia region, one of 14 Indigenous regions worldwide being studied as part of the project.
Galappaththi originally focused on the aquatic industry within Indigenous communities while working on his Ph.D. at McGill University in Canada, but later expanded his reach during COVID-19 pandemic. This allowed him to study the public health challenges that these communities faced.
Now, Galappaththi has changed his approach, spending time engaging with community members in Sri Lanka’s Indigenous communities to research environmental adaptation, food, and health issues and ultimately find solutions that benefit the people in those communities.
“Usually what happens in most of the community-based research is researchers get what they want, but the community, they’re not going to get anything,” Galappaththi said. “They end up used by researchers. That’s the typical Western approach.
“But here, we have a research group that involves early career, mid-career, Indigenous researchers and non-Indigenous researchers. We are representing some of our communities as well. It’s a different approach. It’s a win-win approach. That’s why we can sustain this for the long term.”
In Nepal, Rijal and Tom Hammett, professor in the Department of Sustainable Biomaterials, oversaw a Service Without Borders trip to Nepal in which nine students installed rebar, carried and placed rock, poured concrete, and ultimately finished construction of an irrigation channel to bring water to the orchards in Dhumba, a region in central Nepal. Service Without Borders, a student-led organization at Virginia Tech created to help communities globally, started the project several years ago, though its conclusion was delayed a couple of years by COVID.
The group also visited the International Mountain Museum to learn more about the Himalayan mountains, four Tibetan refugee camps, and the Institute of Forestry, where Hammett once taught and where Rijal was once a student.
Rijal, a native of Nepal, was able to help the students navigate any language barriers and explain in depth the Nepali culture.
“The main objective of Students Without Borders is service, to help others, and for students to use their leadership skills in a different part of the world, where they have to interact and connect with people,” Rijal said. “Then, there is the intercultural experience, especially in Nepal with the language they speak and all the different kinds of costumes. I was able to explain or elaborate more on them. Like, ‘What does this mean?’ Or, ‘When they say these things, what does that mean?’ In terms of the temples or different local areas, I was able to explain more in depth about the culture, places, and people.
“I was excited for the opportunity. I think the students enjoyed it and had a really good time there. And they did all sorts of work that was needed.”
Such opportunities, whether study abroad trips, research expeditions, or service excursions, often help globally in various ways and provide clarity and personal growth for students.
Garbutt wasn’t sure what she wanted to do when she decided to pursue her undergraduate degree in geography. Now, she has more of a direction.
“I would love to become a professor one day or just do research full time and continue to do international field work,” she said. “I think talking to people and hearing their stories and sharing that with the world, and just getting to have the opportunity to see new places is the most fulfilling thing that I found in my life so far.
“If you can do that as a full-time job, that would be incredible.”
