Tell Us About Your Immersion Experience

Ciera Loehrer
My first experience with the Immersion program at the University YMCA was the spring of 2006. I decided to travel to New York to study art and how it relates to social justice issues. It was my first time ever to New York and I loved it. We talked to the education department in the city and how art is needed within school. We visited tons of museums, from the Guggenheim to small street museums. We talked with a rapper and he took us on a tour of New York and talked a little about the music world within New York. We saw graffiti and learned of the history of it and how graffiti as an art form, is in itself a social movement. Through my own art work I have been working on a multiply of projects that portrait the issue of child abuse and neglect, which I lead of trip to Denver, Colorado studying the prevention of child abuse and neglect the spring of 2007.
Leading a trip to Denver was an amazing experience that taught me a lot about myself and what is out there in aiding and helping out with the prevention of child abuse/neglect. On our trip we got to pick the brains of some of the biggest child abuse prevention organizations in Denver. Some like the Tennyson Center, Comitis Crisis Center, Denver’s Children’s Advocacy Center, Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center, Colorado Children’s Trust Fund, Social Work Department of the School System, The Kempe Center, and FACES (Family Advocacy Care Education & Support). Through these organization we experienced the legal side of the fight against child abuse and neglect, we also experienced the educational side of the issue. We volunteered our time at the Tennyson Center and played with some of the children that are being housed there. This trip inspired me to do more.
That is why I am now coordinatoring the Immersion program with my fellow coordinators Eric and Dustin. I hope that as a coordinator I can teach others on how to lead successful trips that give them the inspiration to do more, be that with the Immersion program, University YMCA, or eslewhere. I also hope that those who go on these trips this year will learn more about the different social justice issues that are out there and while doing that learn more about themselves as well. Here's to a new experience and a new year with Immersion. Hope that you can join us!

Welcome to the new Immersion/EBP Blog

This is a blog about the Immersion/Environmental Backpacking Program at the University YMCA on the University of Minnesota campus. The Immersion/EBP program offers alternative break trips over winter, spring, and summer breaks. Each trip offers students the chance to travel, to explore a social justice or environmental issue, to serve the community that they visit, and to bring their experiences back to youth in Minneapolis/St. Paul. All trips are student led, and we are currently recruiting trip leaders for 2008 trips. E-mail uyimmersion@gmail.com for more information and an application.

The Immersion/EBP staff for 2007-2008 includes three coordinators. They are:

Dustin Dresser, Ciera Loehrer, and Eric Garvey