Community Colleges Partner With Brazil

Putting U.S. community college students together with students in Brazil was first a dream, and finally, a reality, for Mary Gershwin, president of U.S.-Brazil Connect, a nonprofit formed to strengthen ties and educational opportunities between the two countries.

“It’s important to start making new opportunities available,” she says. “That’s what we’re doing.”

And it’s worked very well in its first year, as colleges partnered with Brazil’s largest technical and vocational school network to provide English language instruction for Brazilian students and expanded cultural understanding and leadership skills for the U.S. students. Three community colleges joined the initial effort: Houston Community College (HCC) in Texas, Red Rocks Community College in Colorado (RRCC), and Jackson Community College (JCC) in Michigan.

Typically, partnerships take a long time to foster and develop. This one was unusually quick—one year from conception to inception—in part because Gershwin had already established relationships in Brazil. But, she admits, “It was intense.”

Each college pays a membership fee to U.S.-Brazil Connect. Each student pays a portion of his or her travel costs, ranging from $500 to $2,000, depending on how much the college contributes toward the airfare, insurance, and visa. Brazilian partners cover the costs of housing and meals, as well as a stipend of approximately $600.

According to Gershwin, the goal of U.S.-Brazil Connect was to build an infrastructure to provide consistent support for the program. “Colleges want to establish an ongoing relationship with Brazil, but since nobody on the campus has that responsibility, it gets pushed to a