Global Awareness with Carpe Diem Education

Carpe Diem International Education runs international academic programs that work with youth in an educational capacity to get them both out of the country and out of their comfort zones. We firmly believe that the greatest treasure in every being is their own self-reliance: the knowledge that "every student already has everything they could ever need." Throughout the course of our semesters, we focus much energy on helping students learn just what it means to take ownership of their lives.

Our semester programs have been running internationally since 1998 when we first launched a semester in Central America. Since then our programs have grown to include East Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia & the South Pacific, India, and South America. Our programs offer students an educational alternative to the classroom environment by making learning real and active. We fold volunteering, authentic cultural experience, travel, adventure, and language study and homestays (where approriate) into educationally and safely structured programs.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions about our programs:
877-285-1808 or through email at info@carpediemeducation.org

Some Things Everyone Should Know About Us

  • We believe that we are the best at what we do and take pride in our ability to never settle for “good.”
  • We believe that volunteering is the best way to bridge the cultural divide; that by working side by side with the locals, something is exchanged that words simply cannot communicate.
  • We believe in the power of community. At the beginning of every semester we will sit down together and get clear about everyone’s individual reasons for doing this program. From those reasons we will design a set of agreements that we want to live with throughout the program. It is the power of the students to change those by consensus at any time.
  • We believe that everybody grows by having their comfort zones pushed in manageable amounts. Our leaders will at times push everyone’s comfort zones with assignments and activities that they believe will help each student grow.
  • We believe that the international experience is far more culturally authentic and safer without the use of drugs and alcohol.
  • We believe in the empowerment of each student. Our leaders will be asking students to organize their own portion of the program, complete with managing committees, budgets, travel, food, accommodation, and activities. Everyone will at some point work with the leaders to organize a portion of your own semester.

 

Carpe Diem Biographies

Ethan founded Carpe Diem in 2007 after a tenure as Assistant Director with its parent organization, LEAPNow, based in California. He attended Catlin Gabel, a private high school in Portland, and decided to "follow the herd" on to college for what was supposed to be an enlightening four years. However, after a disappointing freshman year for what he phrased a "lack of meaning" Ethan decided to take a leave-of-absence and travel throughout India, Nepal, Tibet and Thailand for a year that has had a lasting impression ever since. Since that day, he has been a fervent advocate of the GAP Year and personal and international (both inner and outer) exploration. Ethan has been a trip leader in Latin America as well as in India as part of the LEAPYear program and has traveled extensively throughout Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and the Americas. Ethan has been invited to speak at the City of Portland's Tri-County Diversity Conference, has led countless leadership training seminars, is the Executive Director of the International Carpe Diem Foundation (Carpe Diem's newest non-profit wing), and is on the board of trustees for Project Aasha (meaning "Hope" in Hindi). After taking his own "GAP Year", Ethan returned to University and quickly graduated from Willamette University in 2001 with a dual degree in English and Philosophy and a minor in Environmental Science. He reads, spends too much time contemplating meaning, and holds certificates by the ManKind Project and Byron Katie, as well as having been trained in Drs. Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks and Gary Zukov's works. Currently he is training in Aikido and working on his first novel.

To watch a you tube video of Ethan speaking at a Seattle GAP fair go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vRZ_1hyMjs

Amy Berg - Program Director. Amy is the daughter of a wildlife biologist, Amy moved around a lot as a child, but will tell you that she calls New Mexico the place where she grew up. It was there that she first began to appreciate the beauty of indigenous cultures and the natural world. She is most at home in her own skin when outside in the fresh air and taking in the wonder of the world around her. Thus her move to the Pacific Northwest.

Amy comes to Carpe Diem about 12 years after catching the international travel ‘bug’ which forever changed her. She led 2 successive groups to Kenya while a student leader at SMU after creating ‘SMU-RAW’ [Reaching Around the World] which exposed students to a developing country for the first time. After being led around a local village hospital by a small child who had fallen in love with her, she fell in love with Kenya. When she returned to the States, and after 6 months of soul-searching on the northern shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota, she altered her previous goals and became a paramedic specializing in acute care pediatric transport in Dallas, TX. She has since earned her RN and works as an emergency room nurse in Portland. Her favorite clientele are the children. Amy recently finished leading a Carpe Diem group to Fiji, New Zealand and Australia where they had a phenomenal group experience and learned everything there is to know about the Lord of the Rings.

Amy brings a wealth of enthusiasm to Carpe Diem, not to mention everything she does. She has seen and experienced first-hand the value of pushing the limits of one’s comfort zone and is happiest when challenged herself. To that end, she recently spent a month in India. It worked!

In her spare time, Amy is an avid backpacker, sport rock climber, skier, snowboarder, animal lover, Reiki practitioner, and self-proclaimed coffee snob among many other things. Some of her favorite readings include the works of the Dalai Lama, Caroline Myss, Thich Naht Hahn, and Thomas Moore.

Nannette Berg - Program Director. Though some would call it chance, anyone who knows Nannette would call it serendipity. Nannette, AKA Nannerz, came to Carpe Diem after a surprisingly meaningful rendezvous with Craig’s List. Nannerz is an avid motorcyclist and while in search of her next bike, came across Ethan Knight who just happened to be selling that classic BMW that she was looking for. Eight months later, and after a challenging and enlightening trip to India, she’s sharing her enthusiasm for personal challenge and empowerment with her work at Carpe Diem.

Nannerz grew up in Minnesota as a nature child with her best friends: the animals and her cross country skis. Spending so much time on her own, she began reading at age 3 and thus traveled in her minds eye everywhere National Geographic would take her. However, once school started, that Mid Western work ethic and traditional career expectation took over and she followed the herds through school, marriage and even the military, (not necessarily in that order). In her quest for meaning and truth, she ventured to the Pacific NW sought a degree in biblical studies, spent 5 frigid years in Alaska and has returned home to Portland where she has invested the last 13 years as a registered nurse assisting patients through the spectrum of the life span, from a dignified death on the oncology floor, to the fight for life in the emergency room.

In all of her “spare” time, Nannerz dabbles in the ‘arts’: motorcycle riding and repair, quantum physics, and energy work. As a Reiki master, she is constantly contributing to healing and empowering individuals and community. She has an affinity for anything outdoors from backpacking and rock climbing to snowboarding and mountain biking. Though she is most zen while riding her ’95 r1100r BMW, she continues her mindfulness training by enjoying the works of Carolyn Myss, Ken Wilbur, the Dalai Lama and of course Harry Potter. She will one day retreat with Thich Naht Hahn at Plum Village.