Ashland students to lead Fulbright-Hays group trip to Brazil

Sixteen   Ashland University students are planning their Fulbright-Hays group trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this July.
Sixteen Ashland University students are planning their Fulbright-Hays group trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this July. | File photo

Sixteen Ashland University students are planning their Fulbright-Hays group trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil this July.

The trip is only possible because the university received funds from the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad grant, “Accessing Carioca Culture through the Lens of Disability.”

The $67,575 grant will finance eight pre-service education students and eight full-time K-12 teachers involved in social sciences and humanities. These students are gathered from across Ohio to make the trip with two of the university’s Schar College of Education Associate Professors, Jason Ellis and Carla Abreu-Ellis.

The students were chosen through an application process that included an essay, an interview and pre-orientation meetings with the director of global education and the study abroad and short-term missions coordinator.

Student activities will include seminars and field research activities, all of which cover important topics about communication, inclusion, accessibility, tourism, adaptive surfing equipment for people with disabilities, soccer from the perspective of a wheelchair user, sign language in Brazil, human rights, disabilities, blindness in Brazil’s classrooms, and more.