INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE
USA, 9 SEPTEMBER – 25 SEPTEMBER 2022.
“International Experience JAC 2022“, TAKE OFF! During the morning of Friday 9 September, our Talents and staff flew to a real and exciting experience, a wonderful opportunity organised by JobsAcademy with New York and Arizona as its destination.
This proposal was born fromthe experience gained in the “JAC Experience Weeks“, which are held annually in the Foundation, and traces its methods and meaning; in fact, the trip was not a holiday, what is proposed to each student is an opportunity for growth and self-discovery, since travel, the encounter with the different and especially beauty enhance the human and make one mature in the awareness of oneself and others. Precisely because of the value of the proposal, the young people were accompanied by a team of staff who followed them and provided them with support not only from a practical point of view, but also from a personal one, with spaces for discussion and proposals for revitalisation, starting with the title chosen for the trip: “All or Nothing”, which led to numerous interpretations of talents thanks to moments of introspection and personal growth.
The experience began in New York where the talents had the opportunity to see the city’s focal points, its skyscrapers and busy streets; the first encounter with the city was the surreal ride on the “East River” by funicular on the night of the first day, with a special view of Manhattan’s skyscrapers and the blackness of the river reflecting them.
On the second day, 10 September, the highlight was Ground Zero and a visit to the Twin Towers museum, an even more impactful experience given the date close to the 21st anniversary of the attacks; the day continued with a visit to “Liberty Island” to greet the Statue of Liberty and then to “Ellis Island”, the point of arrival of all the immigrants of past centuries, all by ferry with evocative views of the city skyline; the first day ended with a spectacular view from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building of a brilliant New York by night.
The next day was a long walk around Manhattan with visits to many iconic places such as the iconic 5th avenue, Central Park, St. Patrick’s cathedral and a visit to MoMA in the afternoon, finally passing by the Rockefeller Center and ending the day after an ‘American pizza’ with a walk ‘by the night’ along the Brooklyn Bridge, with a light drizzle giving the typical New York atmosphere.
Leaving early in the morning, the trip continued in Arizona, at the Holy Trinity Monastery Center in St. David, a small town an hour from the capital Tucson. Here there was the transition, somewhat reflecting the theme of the experience, from everything to nothing; in fact, the talents found themselves moving from chaotic New York, with its “everything” and endless possibilities, to the Arizona desert, with its “nothing”, at least in appearance.
There, the days alternated under the vast desert sky between English lessons and out-of-town experiences, discovering this ‘nothing’. Thus, passing through the vast desert expanses with endless cactus fields as in Saguaro National Park, through the barren terrain leading to the town of Tombstone, which stopped in the Far West era, down into the mining town of Bisbee,and again through the red canyons of Sedona Park, until arriving at the majestic Grand Canyon where the talents were able to spend an entire day between the edge of the abyss and an unforgettable sunset.
The trip ended with a 17-hour flight back, with many more photos and companions. Now that classes have started again, the young people who participated are easily recognisable; in the breaks between classes and at lunchtime one often sees groups of talent from various classes greeting each other, laughing and joking, aware that they have shared an experience they will not forget.
The international week is an integral part of the JobsAcademy courses, a unique opportunity for the talents to observe, understand and experience a country that is so different from our own in some respects. A course also aimed at training our Talents, in terms of skills, as the visits and activities are a request to the Talent to bring into play the skills learnt in the classroom and those developed in the field, thus creating a combination, given the context, that determines a new life experience and, above all, growth for each of them.
