Overview
Nurturing Hope San Antonio is a partnership for educating San Antonio college students in peace and conflict studies. Students from UT San Antonio, Trinity University, and Alamo Colleges meet through the academic year to explore how trust and hope can be sustained in personal, community, and political life.
Students will meet throughout the academic year to engage with one another and plan campus and community events on issues of local concern. Meetings rotate between campuses and community organizations in order to introduce a range of places that may be outside of students’ daily routines.
Rotary's role
The Rotary Club of San Antonio is a local sustaining partner of the fellowship, alongside the H.E. Butt Foundation. The Rotary Club of San Antonio helped develop the partnership with the three campuses and with international colleagues.
The club's work here is local and ongoing: supporting the campus cohorts, connecting students and faculty with community partners, and helping the program take root.
The curriculum
The fellowship is built around Nurturing Hope (2022), a five-book learning resource by Derick Wilson, Duncan Morrow, J. Jean Horstman, and Dong Jin Kim, published by Corrymeela Press and available as an open-source resource.
The materials grew from peace and conflict work at Corrymeela and from learning partners in Northern Ireland, South Korea, and the United States. Dr. Wilson lived in San Antonio in academic year 2019–2020 as a US–UK Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence at St. Philip’s College and Northwest Vista College; during that Fulbright he co-authored the materials that became the basis of this partnership.
The Understanding Conflict Trust stewards this resource. More at nurturinghope.net.
The Summer Learning Journey
Students who complete the local year may be invited to participate in the international Summer Learning Journey at Corrymeela. That invitation serves as an extension of the fellowship, not the whole of it.
How to take part
Students apply through their campus program, not through Rotary. Faculty and campus contacts are listed on Nurturing Hope San Antonio.
Rotarians who want to support the fellowship—as a sustaining partner, a Peace on Earth host, or a sponsor—should contact the club or Jack McGuire.
The Rotary Club of San Antonio Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization, and donations are tax deductible.
