Thank you so much for this opportunity to intern for and work for RJI. I had a wonderful time learning from you. Thank you for this amazing experience in the beautiful Costa Rica!
Alice Liao, Michigan University.
Reto Juvenil Internacional is a leading non-profit association that implements development initiatives in 18 countries for more than 30 years.
In collaboration with Winds of Change created with the mission to link engineering students with NGO partners and impoverished communities throughout Central America to design and build sustainable solutions to improve the lives of these communities:
We Help * We Create * We Cooperate * We Contribute with future professional success exposing engineering students to such projects enables them to gain perspective on the impact they can have on remote communities and gain real-world engineering experience in the field.
These collaborative efforts seem like a great and easy idea on the surface, but it is challenging to achieve the desired community improvements for successful rural revitalization, collaborations and provide solutions of their use in practice. The component for our successful collaborations is—Work and grows together by understanding the cultural context, the reality, the main needs, developing leadership roles throughout the collaborative process with locals, to find opportunities for innovation, long-term success and independence:
Today and together we are supporting future enginner professional and countries like Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the Americas, only surpassed by Haiti. The people of one community in the Managua area are called the "dirty or forgotten people." They are marginalized and excluded from the central community, but they remain hopeful for a better life despite these conditions.