As a first-year architecture and Plan II Honors major, Rachel Larson is already pursuing her goal to create sustainable design for the third world. Her first step toward this goal was joining Global Brigades, which calls itself the world's largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization.

Global Brigades puts young volunteers to work in skill-based programs ranging from dentistry to business and human rights. Naturally, Larson chose to work with the nonprofit's architecture branch.

Larson became a "brigadier" in the fall and traveled over winter break to Honduras to help build a health clinic in El Canton. The health clinic is based on an award-winning design created by UT brigadiers a few years ago. Once completed, the clinic will provide general health care to a region severely lacking it.

When Larson arrived in Honduras, other teams had already begun building the health clinic. The foundation was laid, and the walls were rising. Larson and her team set to work building a retaining wall behind the building to keep erosion back and stabilize the plot of land where the clinic sits.

"I am a firm believer that architecture can change lives," Larson says.  "If you design a building the right way, it can drastically change the way people in a community live."

For the people of El Canton, the new clinic should open doors for better health care—and for educating community members.

"The [Global Architecture Brigade] never just cuts a check and sends it to people who need money," Larson says. "Instead, they try and build structures and teach sustainability that will improve the lives of the people."

The experience also gave Larson a vital real-world lesson in architecture. In the studio, she and other architecture students work with chipboard—a test material that is much easier to work with than field materials.

"Getting a chance to build something where you have to worry about bricks lining up really shows you how important it is to have a good idea of how structures work," Larson says.

Blakeney Kurad, director of the Forty Acres Scholars Program and development, says that Larson's experience exemplifies why Forty Acres Scholars are required not only to do community service, but also to enrich their careers and go abroad. Larson just managed to do all three at once, Kurad says.

"Each scholar has a stipend for a global experience, professional development, and community service," Kurad explains. "Rachel's trip was a perfect combination of all three components."

The group of people most excited about her trip, Larson says, were her fellow Forty Acres Scholars.

"Pretty much everyone was very excited about me going on this trip," she says. "Everyone wanted to hear every detail."