ABSTRACT
Global educators must face the uncomfortable fact that there's one thing worse than not sending students abroad: it's sending immature, ill-prepared, and myopic students whose presence in an overseas community affects more harm than good. One of the benefits of alternative breaks is investing more resources in communities that have been excluded from financial wealth through hosting fees, donations to community-run projects, and contributions of supplies. Similarly, although alternative breaks can have positive impacts in communities, some contributions come with a potential for harm. Education, orientation, and training draw out complexities of international alternative breaks by addressing the host country's and community's social, cultural, political, linguistic, and historical background in relationship to the breakers home country. Programs have found success with reorientation from international alternative breaks by adapting the idea of reentry shock and providing participants with tools to process the intense experience through reflection and to get involved in their home communities.
