Sooners Without Borders (SWB), a student organization in the Gallogly College of Engineering, recently took a group of 11 University of Oklahoma students to Ecuador for an international service-learning experience. The group spent winter break, January 7–18, 2026, at the Regeneration Field Institute, a 70-acre regenerative agroforestry farm focused on sustainable land management and community collaboration.
The trip marked a return to international travel for the organization, which had been limited to domestic projects since the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort to restart international trips was led by Victoria Gilfillan, a sophomore in Environmental Science, who worked with fellow students to rebuild interest and participation in the club. Faculty advisor Lisa Morales, executive director of Engineering Broader Impacts, helped connect the group with OU alumna Beth Huggins, now program director at RFI. That connection helped lay the groundwork for the trip and made the partnership possible.
While in Ecuador, OU students worked alongside peers from the University of California, Berkeley and took part in a mix of fieldwork, workshops, and educational sessions. With guidance from bamboo architect Jorge Loor Ocampo, students learned about bamboo as a building material and assisted with construction of a playground shade structure at a nearby school. They also built bamboo dams to help reduce soil erosion and worked on “living edges,” planted corridors designed to support biodiversity across the farm. In addition, students joined community “mingas,” or collaborative workdays, where they worked with local farmers to help establish syntropic agroforestry systems.
Outside of project work, the program gave students opportunities to experience Ecuadorian culture and ecosystems firsthand. Excursions included visits to a primary forest, a tour of a 120-year-old bamboo house, a cacao farm and a nearby waterfall. Toward the end of the trip, an artist named Ricardo led a hands-on session exploring fragments of artifacts from ancient Ecuadorian cultures, offering students a different perspective on the region’s history and traditions.
Travis Lloyd, RaCamie Bover, Chaz Hall, Trent Rogers sanding and cleaning bamboo beams
A major challenge for participants was the cost of the program. A generous donation from the WaTER Center helped offset expenses and made the experience accessible to students regardless of financial background. Before departing Ecuador, students purchased a carved Guayacan wood piece representing water as a gift to the WaTER Center to thank them for their support. The trip reinforced SWB’s commitment to connecting students with meaningful service experiences both locally and abroad.
Originally founded in the early 2000s as a chapter of Engineers Without Borders, Sooners Without Borders has expanded to include students from all academic disciplines while maintaining its mission of service and hands-on problem solving. The eleven students who traveled represented a range of majors, including Environmental Science, Civil Engineering, Architectural Engineering, and Psychology.
On the last working day constructing the shade structure for the playground at the elementary school in Pavon. Top row from left: Travis Lloyd, Trent Rogers, Julia Robbins, Audrey Hirchert-Walton, Victoria Gilfillan, Jimma Fuson, Ashlyn Olmsted Bottom row: Lisa Morales, RaCamie Bover, Izzy Harris, Chaz Hall, Jaden Sloan
