Three DukeEngage students working in northern Tanzania this summer had a striking reminder that they were no longer in the Gothic Wonderland-literally.
Toward the end of their stay, four assailants wielding machetes and sticks broke into the students' guesthouse, assaulting one of the students in the back of the neck and behind the knees, DukeEngage's Director of Communications Eric Van Danen announced in a July 18th posting on the program's Web site. The thieves then stole three laptops, three cameras and two iPods from the house.
The students, who were in the Engineering World Health program, were immediately moved to other accommodations, and the assaulted student did not need any special medical attention. The victim declined to comment on the incident.
DukeEngage places students into all corners of the world, including several places where heightened preparations for cultural and safety differences were sometimes necessary. But the majority of those who participated in the program this summer did not face any extraordinary health or safety concerns beyond the occasional food poisoning, Van Danen said.
Robert Malkin, a professor of Biomedical Engineering who oversaw the program in Tanzania, said the crime the students experienced was petty, and that students working in developing countries are exposed to such crime every summer.
"The incident was very unfortunate, but we were much more interested that the students were fine," he said.
To ensure the safety of all students traveling and working abroad, the University signed a contract with International SOS, a company that provides services ranging from telephone advice and referrals related to travel abroad to full-scale evacuation by private air ambulance, Van Danen said. Each DukeEngage participant was also given a wallet-sized emergency contact card that they could call 24 hours a day with any concerns.
"We had very few emergencies-primarily illness-related questions relating to seeking medical care in each respective location," Van Danen said. "There were no situations I heard about [in which] students were unsafe. Students felt prepared, and across the board there was a feeling of safety."
Many participants said they felt very safe and that DukeEngage and their site sponsors prepared them well for adjusting to new living conditions.
"Health issues were just the normal things that going to another country involves," said junior Brianne Connolly, who participated in the Peru program. "Once in Peru, we had a seminar to talk about situations that might arise and how to approach people."
But several students in India worked particularly closely with locals, and some of the contact could have posed a safety risk if proper precautions were not observed, junior Margaret Murray said.
In the Sahara House Health Inequalities program in Delhi, students found work in a hospice dressing wounds after they were told that their nongovernmental organization did not have enough work for all 16 participants, Murray said.
"Myself and two other boys had the most intense interactions with wounds," she said. "They were treating abscesses and dressing the wounds. I chose not to do it for my own safety concerns."
She added that many of the patients were injection-drug users whose HIV statuses were unknown. "If they got into contact with fluids, it could have been risky." Murray said.
The two students wore protective medical gloves and had appropriate medical supervision, Van Danen wrote in an e-mail.
Political tensions in some areas also put occasional strain on program participants.
Junior Liza Doran said governmental reforms that put teachers out of jobs caused some uneasiness in Hyderabad, where her group was working as English teachers.
"I think we got there at a bad time in terms of what we were doing. The teachers appreciated [that they worked with] us but there was tension while we were there," she said. "There was a day when a teacher was brutally beaten and all schools shut down. We didn't know and showed up... [and we were] told to immediately leave because they didn't know what would happen."
Leela Prasad, who oversaw DukeEngage in Hyderabad, said program coordinators kept in mind the region's potential vulnerability and took measures to provide participants with relevant security information.
"Our students were shocked and disturbed by the hard fact that it is children who suffer when so-called protests result in frequent-if temporary-school closures, but I think such situations ultimately motivated our students to strive to make a difference to the learning experiences of the children they worked with," she wrote in an e-mail.
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