An Entrepreneur in Global Education

Nina Mariel Alcantara: An Entrepreneur in Global Education

by Sabahat F. Adil, University of Chicago
Outstanding Student Leaders Digest (published by AIDemocracy.org)
January 17, 2006

Students and professionals involved with Americans for Informed Democracy have begun to encourage global awareness on issues such as poverty and AIDS. Through the activities and events organized on their campus, a number of exemplary individuals especially embody the vision this non-partisan organization espouses in its attempt to affect American foreign policy for the betterment of our multinational community. In organizing events ranging from large town hall meetings to intimate global videoconferences, each globally conscious leader has contributed admirably to the tapestry of our global community woven today through the like efforts of others.

Americans for Informed Democracy has selected Nina Mariel Alcantara, a student at Florida International University, as one of its recipients for the Outstanding Student Leader Award. I interviewed Nina during December and January of 2005-06, and the following article summarizes the breadth of our conversation.

Alcantara’s thirst for encouraging others to understand the nature of global interdependency began from her earliest days as a child. She was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, where she studied at Holy Name Convent. Alcantara studied Spanish and French there, and her experience with such a diversity of languages brought her an enhanced level of appreciation for the numerous cultures and beliefs that exist in countries other than one’s own.

Alcantara, along with her family, moved to Miami, Florida in the year 2000, where she enrolled in St. Brendan High School. After a very successful high school career, Alcantara received a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship to study at Florida International University. Currently a student at FIU, Alcantara has been involved actively in numerous activities on campus, serving in such diverse positions as the Everglades Hall Council Vice President and a Co-Captain of Relay for Life. As an organizer for Relay for Life, she planned an event that supported breast cancer awareness and fundraised for cancer research.

In her capacity as a globally conscious and culturally keen student leader, Alcantara organized such events on FIU’s campus such as a September 11, 2001 Memorial that included a candlelight vigil to remember those who died on that day through song, dance and poetry. She has also used artistic means of expression to prepare what she calls a “jam session” in her attempt to encourage people “from different backgrounds to unite through music and song.” Alcantara’s interests in helping her peers extend beyond Florida; she arranged a charity ball on campus involving a dinner and dance fundraising event, which, Alcantara stated, “ultimately benefited an orphanage in Haiti.”

Keeping in mind its efforts to induce changes in American foreign policy that take multinationalism into account, Americans for Informed Democracy’s events occur in cities as diverse as Green Bay, Wisconsin and London, England. Alcantara has not only organized events through her activities on campus but, as a Junior, she traveled to England and enrolled at the University of Hull as part of a student exchange program. She said that the opportunity allowed her to broaden her horizons, as she experienced “a different culture and [learned] more about world issues.” Additionally, Alcantara learned about the activities and aims of AID while she was abroad at the University of Hull, a testament to the lasting work that the non-partisan group has performed worldwide.

Alcantara’s time abroad convinced her to become an International Relations major, and she declared this concentration after returning from England. Alcantara joined FIU’s International Relations Club thereafter, and became active with Americans for Informed Democracy. When I asked Alcantara about the origins of her involvement with AID, she told me, “I first became aware of AID from their Bringing the World Home Conference in Europe” during the year of 2004. She could not attend that particular initiative, but Alcantara states that, since then, she has “become more and more involved” with AID, and chose to get involved with AID given “their emphasis on education and their faith in my generation to make essential changes in our world.” Alcantara also told me that she has found AID and its staff to be very helpful, and hopes continue working on AID’s initiatives in the future because of numerous positive experiences that she has already had. I hope that these events will increase awareness of global issues so that my generation will be more active and show more care than the generations before.

She held her first AID event on October 12, 2005 called Fighting for What's Right, an AID initiative that promotes nationwide dialogue and action toward an effectual U.S. development policy. She told me that the “goal of this event was to educate the campus at large about global issues particularly the Millennium Development Goals and to dispel any misconceptions.” The Beacon, FIU’s student newspaper, covered her event. Alcantara’s event featured guest speakers, including CARE International’s Derreck Kayongo, former Refugee in Kenya from Uganda.

The room where Alcantara held the Fighting for What’s Right event included decorations of “artwork from various artists depicting global issues.” Over two hundred people attended the event. This AID event also increased student awareness of cultural diversity in the global community through performances such as, Alcantara said, “an African tribal dance, a rap artist and the FIU gospel choir.” Bringing the arts into conversation with academia, Alcantara recognized that, for instance, rap performances allowed young people to relate to the issues in discussion with greater comfort, clarity and enthusiasm.

The National Honors Society at FIU commended Alcantara’s event Program of the Month in the Southeast Region.

Fighting for What’s Right garnered such a considerable amount of success that Alcantara planned another AID event at FIU. Truly an admirable student leader, Alcantara coordinated a viewing of “The Peacekeepers,” a news documentary addressing the United Nations Peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the documentary speaks for itself through film techniques used in recording the Peacekeeping mission, Alcantara moderated successfully a lively discussion on the nature of the film’s content after the screening. Over eighty students attended this event.

Alcantara told me that FIU’s South Campus is rather large but, “despite [this] massive size and diversity, FIU students are not as accepting or aware as one might imagine. Due to this, AID initiatives are much needed at this campus.” Although other students might express the same sentiment, Alcantara and other student leaders have already begun to initiate much-needed change on our campuses that will induce, ultimately, larger change within the political workings of our country. From the events and activities that students like Alcantara, in all of their maturity, sincerity and spiritedness, hold for our peers, it appears that the future of our global community remains grasped by the hands of bright and committed individuals.