Alternative Breaks has turned to Zoom for a safer-at-home learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What’s kind of exciting about the change this year and how we’re doing it a little bit differently because we can’t travel is that we can really focus on the local, because so many issues that we’ve addressed in the past are just as relevant to this space as they are in other places,” said Stella Childress, the graduate assistant with ETSU Alternative Breaks.

Prior to COVID-19, Alternative Breaks provided students with the ability to turn their spring break into an opportunity to learn about various social issues and to contribute to the communities they visited with “direct, hands-on action.”

The alternative break experience in prior years involved trips like this one to Chicago, IL. (Contributed/ETSU)

For 2021, with travel out of the question, these learning experiences will be broadcast via Zoom on two separate weekends: Feb. 26-28 and April 9-11.

Feburary’s event is titled “Cultivating Active Anti-Racism in Response to Unjust Policing,” and is now open for registration.

“We’ll have discussions and workshops and different things during that weekend to educate about different issues under the umbrella of race and unjust policing,” said Childress.

Alternative Breaks is a national movement that many universities participate in and is powered by the non-profit organization Break Away. The movement seeks to engage students and turn them into “Active Citizens” of their communities and to contribute to the improvement of a host of critical and extensive issues.

“The goal is singular in that we’re creating programs for students to go on these trips where they focus on a social justice issue,” said Childress.

Some of the social issues Alternative Breaks has focused on in the past include civil and human rights, LGBTQ identity, criminal justice and prison reform, human trafficking, disaster recovery, health and the environment, poverty and homelessness and immigration and refugee resettlement.

April’s event, “Food Justice and Sustainability in Johnson City, TN,” will open for registration at a later date.

“It’s not until you really see it that you think it’s important to address some of these issues,” said Childress.

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