Rizky Rahadianto ’15 returned home to Indonesia over winter break for the first time since arriving on campus as a freshman. Rahadianto, Huyen Le ’14, and Claire Choi ’13 were the three recipients of WesMiles, a pilot program launched last semester to fund trips home for students with home addresses outside of the United States who are receiving need-based financial aid.

“I ate street food for five days in a row, and then my stomach got upset,” Rahadianto said, describing his return home. “I felt alive again.”

Through air miles donations from alumni, WesMiles subsidizes round-trip plane tickets for students who otherwise would not have the financial means to fly home over winter break.

In December 2012, Rahadianto, Le, and Choi flew on the donated miles to their home countries of Indonesia, Vietnam, and South Korea, respectively. Choi returned to her home in Seoul for the first time in three and a half years during this most recent winter break.

“It was a little bit surreal,” Choi said. “I didn’t really expect that I’d have a chance to go back. I just got lucky because of a generous donor.”

After enduring chaotic Jakarta traffic, Rahadianto came home to find his cat deceased, his motorcycle sold, and his mother unable to believe his return.

“It took me 15 minutes to convince her,” Rahadianto recounted. “I was saying, ‘Mom, this is Rizky Rahadianto, I’m your second child, remember?’ Finally she recognized me. I hugged her. I cried. She cried. It felt great.”

WesMiles is coordinated by the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA), the Office of Financial Aid, and the Office of International Student Affairs (OISA) and is facilitated by University Relations. The initiative was spearheaded by WSA President Zach Malter ’13 and Chair of the WSA Financial Aid Advisory Committee and Chair of PANGEA, the international students’ association, Sisi Miteva ’15.

The project addressed the concern that many international students on need-based aid do not have the financial resources to return home during breaks.

“In my application, I tried to explain my situation,” Rahadianto recounted. “I talked about how bad I missed my family and how my mom tried to call me every week crying, asking me to go home. I told her I can’t because I don’t have money yet.”

Associate Dean for International Student Affairs Alice Hadler stated that, previously, scholarships for international students included a trip home every year. The stipend was discontinued due to fiscal restraints.

“I had been very unhappy with the fact that people can be forced to just never go home,” Hadler said. “Most people work a lot in order to have the money to go home at some point. There are people who work two or three jobs, and that just doesn’t seem right.”

In November, Director of Financial Aid John Gudvangen invited 54 students with home addresses outside of the Unites States receiving need-based financial aid to apply for WesMiles. WesMiles is open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Preference is given to students who have not returned home during their time at the University or to those with extenuating circumstances.

A committee, consisting of Malter, Miteva, Gudvangen, and Hadler, selected three students from eight applicants. The committee forwarded the candidates to the donor for the final decision, expecting him to fund one or two students.

“[The donor] said they were all very compelling, so he wanted to fund them all,” Hadler said.

After the success of the WesMiles pilot, the WSA is exploring options to expand the program. Malter and Miteva are aiming to institutionalize an infrastructure to accommodate the donated miles and facilitate the exchange between donors and students.

The students went home to experiences both familiar and unfamiliar to those in the United States. Rahadianto landed in Jakarta in time for the biggest flood to hit the city in six years.

“It was good bonding time with my family,” he said. “We spent two days trying to get the water out.”

Meanwhile, Choi tasted local South Korean cuisine for the first time in years.

“Street food,” she said. “This bread with red bean paste, that’s my favorite,” she began. “It’s sad talking about food I can’t eat; can I stop?”

1,700 miles away, Le too reconnected with friends over shared meals on plastic tables amidst the roaring motorcycles of Hanoi traffic.

For Rahadianto, his journey home also revived the social consciousness that brought him to the University in the first place.

“When you live so comfortably in a liberal arts college for two years without poverty, street children, corruption, you forget about all these things that are happening in the world,” Rahadianto said. “Going home reminded me of how these children can’t go to school and can’t have my privilege. It inspired me to combine my Wesleyan community-based culture with my own culture back in Indonesia by doing something like fundraising.”

International students who cannot afford to fly home tend to stay on campus. These students commiserate over dinner potlucks, Stop-n-Shop runs, and attempts to stay warm in the often bleak Connecticut winters.

Kaya Lee ’13, who has survived three winters on campus, shared her story.

“I learned how to enjoy life alone,” she said.

Students affirmed that the inability to return home over break can cause emotional and psychological strain.

“Imagine if you are abroad,” Rahadianto said. “You do feel culture shock a lot of times. Even though you’re happy, there are times when you don’t feel like you fit in the culture. You want to go home. You miss your friends, you miss your family. Even though I always look happy, there are those nights where I’d actually cry. But then again, I’m sensitive.”

The WesMiles program has received positive responses.

“I think it’s fantastic,” Hadler said. “I mean, it’s just sort of unalloyed good.”

The pilot project took two years to implement. It began as an idea proposed by an alumnus during a Board of Trustees sub-committee meeting to use miles to finance travel expenses for the University. Malter and Miteva began their research in 2011 to adapt the idea to fund international students’ trips home. The committee secured the donor last fall, and University Relations liaised the communication.

“I wrote an email to the donor, saying to him, thank you so much,” Rahadianto said. “He wants to meet me. I’m looking forward to that.”

Miteva herself is an international student. She returns to her home in Bulgaria once a year.

“As an international student, I can definitely relate to the hardship of not being able to go home for at least a year or more,” Miteva said.

The WSA now seeks to open the opportunity to more students, Malter stated.

“The goal would be able to do this on a larger scale, funding more students, and then even to offset other costs within the institution if we can fund other travels, but that’s a long term goal,” Malter said.

There are, however, legal and logistical issues to creating an institutional fund for unused miles that may take time to resolve, both Miteva and Malter noted.

“For example, there are programs where you can donate miles to charities, but Wesleyan is not really a charity,” Miteva said. “It’s a lot of things that we have to take into consideration.”

Although reactions to the program have been mostly positive, some have expressed worries that if air mile donations become more common, it may reduce other means of contributions to the University. However, Malter stated that this should not be a concern.

“I don’t think it will detract from other forms of contributions,” Malter said. “Part of this, as it grows, is going to be making sure that people see it as an additional contribution rather than the only contribution.”

Miteva hopes to fund the next group of students this summer.

“We’ll definitely try to get some people home,” Miteva said.