{"id":301245,"date":"2026-06-09T12:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301245\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T12:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:54:09","slug":"eye-opening-experience-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/301245\/","title":{"rendered":"Eye-opening experience in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Brianna \u201cBree\u201d Fish first told her parents about her plans to travel to Cape Town, South Africa, to participate in the University of Miami\u2019s semester-long UCape Town program,<\/a> they were hesitant, at least at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had this Western idea of what Africa is like and were a bit worried, but once I started sending pictures, explained I was living in student dorms in the city, and shared how valuable the experience was, they were so supportive,\u201d said Fish, who graduated with a double major in global health and international studies.<\/p>\n

Fish\u2019s parents were already, in fact, a bit accustomed to their daughter\u2019s resolve to \u201cdo her thing.\u201d In high school, when she voiced her interest to leave home in Annapolis, Maryland, to study out of state, they\u2019d said \u201cOK, but you\u2019ll have to find a way to pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She did. In her senior year in high school, Fish joined the Army ROTC and went on to earn a national scholarship that financed her studies at the University. As part of the scholarship requirement, this summer she will commission into the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Reserve as a second lieutenant to satisfy duty requirements for the next eight years that include a weekend a month and a few weeks each summer. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Fish described her experience in the South Africa study abroad program, which is coordinated by the College of Arts and Sciences\u2019 Department of Geography and Sustainable Development<\/a>, as \u201cabsolutely empowering\u201d and \u201ceye-opening\u201d in many ways.<\/p>\n

\"South\u201cIt was a culture shock at first. I had lived in the same place my entire life in Annapolis, and then it was hard moving to Miami, but coming to Cape Town was so completely different,\u201d she said. \u201cEspecially because I was going into the townships. That\u2019s been completely different and eye-opening for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Requirements for a global health studies degree include completing a capstone\u2014an internship, thesis, or service-learning project. So, in addition to taking three classes at the University of Cape Town (UCT), one of the leading institutions of higher learning on the African continent, Fish secured an internship with Higher Health, a nongovernmental organization that provides public health resources and supplies to students studying at campuses throughout South Africa.<\/p>\n

To fulfill the 150 hours of her capstone, Fish was first trained and then traveled with a Higher Health supervisor to \u201cactivations\u201d\u2014teaching basic public health practices, facilitating dialogues on gender-based violence and forms of abuse, and distributing contraceptives\u2014at college campuses in the Western Cape area.<\/p>\n

\"South\u201cI had a preconceived notion that most people my age would have learned basic sex-ed, but the primary and high schools there don\u2019t teach any of that. And because of the culture, it\u2019s just not common practice to talk about sex. They very much follow standard practices when it comes to men being in charge, women having to follow along and listen. Young women get pregnant, drop out of school because they don\u2019t have access to childcare\u2014it\u2019s ingrained in their culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it was a bit of shock for me and the students I was interacting with to be like, \u2018Here\u2019s this American girl teaching how to use a condom and about contraceptives, and she\u2019s just really open about it,\u2019\u201d Fish said. \u201cI had to create a safe space for them to be able to ask me questions and have those conversations. That was a big learning moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

A swimmer on the University of Miami club swim team, Fish tried out for the UCT swim team just for fun. She traveled with the South African version of a national team to Bloemfontein, the country\u2019s judicial capital, to compete there against South African swimmers from other colleges.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool to say that I participated in that. There were some really fast swimmers, some international, and everyone was so welcoming,\u201d Fish said.<\/p>\n

Fish will return home when the program concludes on June 15. She\u2019s looking ahead to graduation, to begin her commission as an Army Reserve Officer, and to securing a job in the public health sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been such an empowering and confidence-boosting experience,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can sit in a classroom all day and get told things like \u2018This is a big issue affecting a specific population,\u2019 but until you experience firsthand, it\u2019s really hard to visualize how big an issue is. It was really valuable for me to have the hands-on experience articulating things that I\u2019d learned in the classroom to people in real life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Brianna \u201cBree\u201d Fish first told her parents about her plans to travel to Cape Town, South Africa,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-301245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}