Student Profile: Matt McCoy, BA ‘08
“Committed to Serving Dalits of India”

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McCoy spent the next two months living and teaching English at St. Patrick’s six days a week to several students who did not speak English.

During the summer of 2005, McCoy went up to the cooler climate of the Himalayas living in a guesthouse run by Tibetan monks in Dharamsala and on a houseboat with a Kashmiri family in Srinagar. During this time, McCoy experienced a visit from the Dalai Lama and experienced nationalists attack a tourist center in protest of the opening of the new bus route between Indian and Pakistani Kashmir. Two months later, McCoy said goodbye to St. Patrick’s and returned to the United States.

McCoy has still managed actively provide service and do his part in this region of the world. During winter break, he went back to India with five members of his family and a friend to conduct the LEEEP Program--Learning through Exposure, Exchange, and Experience. Using a summer camp format, they exposed the students to batiking, musical recorder lessons, CPR and first aid classes, Sudoku puzzles, American games, dances and movies and lots of spoken English--ending with Sports Day, a day of competition in both Western and Indian games.

Volunteering his time to Dalit Solidarity, McCoy experienced both the struggles, as well as the joys, of working for a charitable group. “While there seems to be no limit to the number of worthwhile charitable programs being conducted in this country and abroad, there are definite limits to the resources available. The task becomes uncomfortably personal when you know the names and faces of every student and teacher that will be let go if enough money isn’t raised to meet each year’s expenses. Even the best social entrepreneurs can’t survive on their good deeds alone,” he says. McCoy will continue his efforts to make a difference in India, but he says his priority is pursuing a BA in International Relations.

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