Needleman
Mello
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Fifteen IU students will spend spring break in Porto Alegre, Brazil, as part of the second annual overseas study program sponsored by the Division of Labor Studies.
Students from the IU Kokomo and IU Northwest campuses will participate in a 10-day educational exchange hosted by the Metalworkers Federation of Brazil. They will visit factories and steel plants as well as meet with union workers and leaders. Students will study the Brazilian labor movement, its organizational history and structure, and the history of the Workers Party.
Ruth Needleman, professor of labor studies at IU Northwest, and William Mello, assistant professor of labor studies at IU Kokomo, will lead the trip. Mello is Brazilian and fluent in Portuguese, and Needleman is fluent in Spanish and will assist in translations.
Both visited Brazil this past summer as special guests of the Brazilian Federation of Labor at the World Forum on Education. According to Needleman, they began work on this exchange in March 2004 when Marino Vani and Maristela Barbero, assistant director of education for the National Labor Federation, came to Gary for an international conference on building learning communities at IU Northwest.
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