Break Away is a national nonprofit organization that promotes the development of quality alternative break programs through training, assisting, and connecting campuses and communities. The organization has chapters on about 200 college campuses throughout the United States. Break Away holds training sessions for directors at each chapter school, who then train the student leaders and participants. An alternative break consists of a group of college students who serve a community with a focus on a specific social issue for a specific amount of time, whether it is a weekend or a week. Most trips are weeklong trips, with the majority over college spring breaks. 60% of trips occur over spring breaks and 15% occur over winter breaks. The social issue pertains to the community to which the group goes. Break Away emphasizes service-learning in which group members learn about the community they will be serving and how to avoid voluntourism. Break Away encourages student leaders, with each trip consisting of student leaders, student participants, a partner organization, and most of the time, a learning partner. By emphasizing the Active Citizenship Continuum and the Eight Components of a Quality Alternative Break, Break Away hopes to produce valuable alternative breaks, which will then lead participants to become more aware and active in their community. Break Away has about 200 chapter schools, more than 500 nonprofit partnerships, and thousands of participants and alumni worldwide. Just in 2014, there were a total of 1,551 trips with over 20,000 participants, which equates to over 1 million hours of service. Of the 1,551 trips in 2014, 1,334 were domestic and 251 were international. (en)
Break Away is a national nonprofit organization that promotes the development of quality alternative break programs through training, assisting, and connecting campuses and communities. The organization has chapters on about 200 college campuses throughout the United States. Break Away holds training sessions for directors at each chapter school, who then train the student leaders and participants. An alternative break consists of a group of college students who serve a community with a focus on a specific social issue for a specific amount of time, whether it is a weekend or a week. Most trips are weeklong trips, with the majority over college spring breaks. 60% of trips occur over spring breaks and 15% occur over winter breaks. The social issue pertains to the community to which the grou (en)