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Students from Puerto Rico Continue Education at VWU
Displaced by Hurricane Maria, visiting students attend VWU during spring semester
Featured News | March 16, 2018
Narmarie Davila and Antonio Crespo are college students from Puerto Rico who are attending Virginia Wesleyan University this semester. Their arrival at VWU is the result of a concerted effort that began in late 2017 when Virginia Wesleyan initiated a fundraising campaign to offer full scholarships for visiting students from the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao.
Like Virginia Wesleyan, the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao is an institution of the liberal arts and sciences focused on scholarship, leadership, service and global citizenship. The municipality of Humacao is located on the eastern coast of the island of Puerto Rico and was among the areas most devastated by the effects of Hurricane Maria in September 2017.
Because of the catastrophic storm, college students like Narmarie and Antonio were displaced, making it difficult for them to gain access to education on the island. Virginia Wesleyan, like many other U.S. colleges and universities, wanted to help ameliorate this challenge by providing them with a tuition-free semester in spring 2018.
“We are especially committed to offering continuity of education to students of the University of Puerto Rico-Humacao,” said Virginia Wesleyan President Scott D. Miller. “Our goal was to fund the students for the spring term and we achieved just that.”
Fundraising efforts included two special events in January 2018—a Happy Hour at DeRican Chef Restaurant in Virginia Beach and a Latin Dance Party held on campus. Once the fundraising goal was reached, arrangements to bring Narmarie and Antonio to Virginia Wesleyan were expedited.
Narmarie says she finished classes in Puerto Rico on a Wednesday and on Friday she was on a plane to come to the U.S. She loves to read and says she wants to be a corporate lawyer and work in the manufacturing industry. She is working toward that end while at VWU.
“My parents encouraged me, they said opportunities like this don’t happen every day,” noted Narmarie. “There has been so much instability in Puerto Rico, we didn’t know what would happen there. There was no functional library or student center – no access to the cafeteria for two months and there weren’t a lot of tools for access to resources. During the crisis, I worked with the national student office and I saw a lot of students leaving to study in the U.S. because of the offers they were receiving.”
Antonio, who likes basketball, off-road cars and monster trucks, says he hopes to attain a better level of English through his experience here and that it is something he can share when he returns to Puerto Rico. Prior to coming to VWU, Antonio also talked with his parents about the opportunity.
“They told me if I want to go, go. It’s my life, and it’s an opportunity I need to take advantage of.”
As part of the selection process, Narmarie and Antonio were asked to indicate how they would use their experience at Virginia Wesleyan to improve life in Puerto Rico upon their return. They agreed that they want to be a part of uniting the community and helping to solve the challenges that Puerto Ricans are facing in the aftermath of the storm. Their “social impact project” involves using what they learn here to help make a positive impact when they go back to the island after this semester.
“It was the project that sold me,” says Narmarie. “When I learned that I would actually be doing something meaningful, that it could have a domino effect, I was interested. What Puerto Rico needs right now is the involvement in the community. Most of the youth and professionals are leaving because of the circumstances in Puerto Rico. I want to go back and make a difference.”
The project they are working on while at VWU involves constructing a curriculum to be used with Puerto Rican high school students as an extracurricular after school activity. It will most likely include human resources and financial workshops for students, in addition to efforts to help them discover themselves and what they want to do, while providing them with tools that can also help them make an impact on their community.
Narmarie and Antonio are hosting an International Happiness Day event in the Jane P. Batten Student Center on Tuesday, March 20, as part of their semester-long project. The event, part of a worldwide effort to promote happiness, will be livestreamed with a "happiness team" from Puerto Rico.
“We’re thrilled that the VWU community supported this important endeavor,” said Mavel Velasco, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Virginia Wesleyan. “It promises to aid the recovery in Puerto Rico, to build new and durable alliances between our two regions, and, most importantly, to ensure that young people like Narmarie and Antonio have the opportunity to continue their education.”