Turning Winds organizes international service trips abroad for our clients twice a year. The trips are always uplifting therapeutic experiences since they involve helping others. Traveling to foreign countries to be immersed in different cultures and help people less fortunate than ourselves affords new perspectives and the ability to learn that all people are essentially the same.
Turning Winds has taken clients to Costa Rica, Peru, Ghana, Thailand, Greece, Panama, and other places around the world. “We’ve had international service trips for about half a decade now,” says Turning Winds CEO Owen Baisden. “I had experiences abroad when I was a kid and they were powerful because life in the United States can be quite different from what the rest of the world experiences.”
Two years ago, Turning Winds clients and their chaperones visited a remote village in Guatemala. “The primary purpose of the trips is to put together meaningful opportunities for the kids to get outside of themselves and give to other people,” explains chief operations officer Carl Baisden who organized and supervised this service trip to Central America.
“We picked a Mayan mountain village. This trip was particularly meaningful to most participants,” says Baisden for whom it was very impactful from a service standpoint. “I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was such a remote village.”
“When we got off the bus we were greeted by some 30 kids—mostly elementary school age—and surprisingly there were over 100 adults as well,” Baisden remembers. “When I talked to the principal he told me that they had never had visitors from outside the community before.”
“They got to experience a lot of Guatemalan culture,” says Baisden. “We were in people’s huts learning how to make pottery and we got to make coffee and chocolate from scratch. In addition to the service aspect they got that culture immersion that is so hard to come by.”
In the spring of 2023, it was off to Morocco. As on previous occasions, it was the first international trip for most of the kids. “Even going through customs was an exciting, novel experience for them,” says program director Enoch Stump. “Right away they were communicating with people who had no idea how to communicate with them. It was interesting to watch our kids interacting with someone who doesn’t speak their language. Some of our kids were very dynamic handling this but this was one of the first culture shocks they experienced when they got off the plane in Morocco.”
TRANSFORMATIVE EXPERIENCES
In terms of treatment, “these service trips speak for themselves; there are so many therapeutic aspects,” explains Turning Winds therapist Sean Carlin. “The kids learn new skills, we took them to daycares where they worked with children teaching them English and playing games with them.”
“Because of the relationship we have with those kids we were able to go through the entirety of this trip without serious problems. When it was time to leave after a week, there were actually tears,” recalls Carlin. “The Moroccans served up a feast on the final day. It all starts with those relationships here at Turning Winds. That’s why we are so successful. If you don’t have those relationships in treatment, it’s not going to inspire change and a positive outcome.”
After the transformative experience in Morocco, Turning Winds set out on an impactful journey to Belize. As always, the trip combined international volunteerism, learning, and growth opportunities as well as fun activities for the Turning Winds clients. “We had evening activities planned for every day,” says Carl Baisden, “but most of the time we were volunteering at a school in an underprivileged neighborhood. This trip was exceptional. We witnessed incredible things and made a real difference. It was just amazing!”
Service trips for teens are more than just a break from life in the United States; they are frequently a leap into a world of self-discovery and community connection. They provide growth opportunities, allowing our teens to explore cross-cultural experiences that broaden their horizons.
Traveling to foreign countries to be immersed in other cultures and helping people less fortunate than ourselves is an exciting opportunity to gain new perspectives and boost self-confidence—especially in young people.
“They all felt the poverty they encountered in Belize,” recalls Carl Baisden. “The vast majority of people in the area where we were of service lived in very small houses. Some were shelters that didn’t look much like houses to us at all. Outside of the cities, many people in Belize live in pretty extreme poverty.”
The latest service trip took Turning Winds students to Greece—more about that excursion in a future blog post. It was the second time Turning Winds was taking kids to Greece. “The cultural experience last time was very powerful,” says program director Enoch Stump. “It’s a country with a rich history and culture.” On the first Greece trip a few years ago, students got to work with refugees from Syria. This time around the kids were working with a school for Ukrainian refugees.”
SERVICE TRIPS AS THERAPY AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Our international service trips are intended to foster leadership, resilience, and a profound sense of global citizenship. Our teenage patients develop empathy and a hands-on understanding of diverse cultures by engaging in community service and contributing to their personal and academic growth.
Exposing Turning Winds clients to the experiences of people in foreign cultures is a powerful aspect of service work. While the visitors may come as helpers, it is often the people being helped who become the teachers of valuable life lessons.
The therapeutic value of the service trip experience cannot be overstated. “We have repeatedly witnessed how the lives of our students change as a result of our service trips,” says chief operations officer Carl Baisden.
TWO DECADES OF EXCELLENCE
At Turning Winds, it’s not only adventures abroad but the people who make the difference. For the past two decades, we’ve built a team of some of the world’s finest academic and therapeutic professionals, who all share the same goal: to help teens re-engage meaningfully with their lives, families, and futures.
Ready to empower your teen? Explore our life-changing treatment options today! Contact us online for more information, or call us at 800-845-1380 to start your teen’s journey to a brighter tomorrow.
