The Buenos Aires International Program is unique in many different ways. The program is the first and only one located in South America and the only program where students are given the unique opportunity to live with homestay families, according to Pepperdine Community‘s website.
The program is located in Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The city is known as the dynamic metropolis of Argentina, and with over 10 million people in the capital and the Metropolitan Area, it is one of the 10 most populated cities in the world, according to Buenos Aires Ciudad‘s website.
Buenos Aires has one of the most diverse populations in the world, and more than 90% of the population has non-Argentinean ancestry, according to the Council on International Educational Exchange. Pepperdine embraces this diversity in accordance with the university’s mission, said Harmony Hill-Weber, the program’s Student Affairs and Spiritual Life Coordinator.
“I think that service has always been something that the BA program has found important, and a lot of that is connected to Pepperdine’s Christian mission,” Hill-Weber said.
Pepperdine’s motto is taken from Matthew 10:8, which reads, “Freely ye received, freely give,” according to the University. Hill-Weber said with how much the country gives to Pepperdine students, service becomes one of the program’s main focuses throughout each semester.
“All the students are here in Buenos Aires and receiving so much from Argentina; from their homestays, from their travels around, and they’re learning so much,” Hill-Weber said. “It’s just such a beautiful way for students to be able to give back to Argentina.”
Hill-Weber works with “Service Coordinators,” which are student workers designated to help organize these unique opportunities for the program. The group tries to provide monthly opportunities for students to travel to surrounding communities to give service. This is also paired with weekly sandwich making for Buenos Aires’ unhoused neighbors, Hill-Weber said.
The program works directly with Hermanas Benedictinas, a monastery 2.5 blocks from the Buenos Aires campus in Belgrano. Aside from making sandwiches and delivering them to this monastery every week, the program also dedicated one of their Saturdays to helping fix up the monastery.
Students walked over to the monastery and spent Feb. 22 painting the front gate of the property. Those who participated also had the chance to meet and share lunch with some of the nuns who work at Hermanas Benedictinas.
“We have pretty close ties to this place we’re serving,” sophomore Finance major Nick Fieldhouse said. “So it’s been cool just to see where the sandwiches are going and just more ways to help out and serve there.”
Dina Vasquez, sophomore Psychology major and one of the Service Coordinators in Buenos Aires this semester, said her favorite part about spending her day at the monastery was getting to hang out with everyone else who also wanted to give back.
“Doing any activity in general with people allows you to bond, but especially doing service projects, you know those people have a heart to serve, and so you can kind of relate on that, and I think it’s like a really good community,” Vasquez said.
Fieldhouse and Vasquez both said they did not know that service was so heavily emphasized in the Buenos Aires program when deciding where they should spend their time abroad. However, it is an aspect of the program they have come to value immensely.
“Even though it didn’t necessarily influence why I came, it’s definitely a big influence on my life here,” Vasquez said.
Students participate in service projects for a variety of reasons, but Fieldhouse said throughout all the opportunities he has been given as an all-year student since September, the service projects help him immerse himself into Buenos Aires a little more each time.
“They’ve been really cool experiences to get to experience a little bit of the culture of the city, but just serve the people of the city that’s been so important to me — that’s just so impactful to my overall experience here,” Fieldhouse said.
This sentiment is common among many students who come to the Argentina program. The opportunity to give back to their abroad community is what many students seem to cherish the most about Buenos Aires, Hill-Weber said.
“What I find from our students is they feel more connected to Buenos Aires because they’re more connected to the people, and that so much has to do with the chances that we provide to give back,” Hill-Weber said.
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