spreading knowledge

15/04/16755926239_953a9b96ef_z.jpg&h=426 By Hilary Smith, Sustainability Resource Center For many students, spring break was a time for relaxing, catching up on homework, or partying. Not so for a group of 20 U of U students and community members, who spent the week off from school—plus a few extra days—teaching community members in rural Honduras the ins and outs of community banking and small business management. https:// sustainableutah.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/16299582824_8722f6d457_z.jpg The group’s departure marked the U of U’s first mission with Global Brigades, a 12-year-old international organization that aims to build sustainable, holistic communities through development projects in Ghana, Panama, Nicaragua, and Honduras. Today, there are about 450 active Global Brigades chapters, in the United States, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Switzerland. Almost 40,000 volunteers have participated in more than 2,000 trips since the organization was established. The organization operates under the hope that after a few trips to a given site, the brigades will have worked themselves out of a job. On May 9, a second brigade, including 15 students from the U of U and 10 from the University of Miami, Fla., will depart for a yet-to-be-determined site in rural Panama. They will spend seven days providing community members with basic medical and dental assistance and health