Many students at UCBC do not know what service-learning (SL) is all
about. The SL coordination noticed this after a quiz was given to all UCBC
students to investigate people’s understanding of sl. Some confused SL with the Work Program, picking up trash; while others confused it with acts of charity.
Thus, the SL program organized the first SL promotion week led by SL interns at UCBC from the 9th to 13thto help both students and staff members gain a deeper understanding of SL.
All activities were conducted over the course of three days : Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. The first day, SL interns gave an overview of SL theory. Jimmy (Community partnership and project support specialist) opened the session and explained to the audiance the definition of SL.
Nathan (Community partnership and project support specialist) gave some
Examples of types of SL: direct, indirect and advocacy. He made a clear illustration of these kinds of SL thanks to some SL project that have been conducted in the community of Beni by UCBC students.
Francine (Communications and Multimedia Specialist),came up with some concepts that people often confuse with SL; such as work program, volunteering,internship and service, to name but the few. She insisted on the fact that the biggest difference between the later and SL is that there is no learning in them in terms of connection to a class.
After then, Zawadi (Food security specialist), explained why is it important to have SL at UCBC. She gave different contributions both for students and staff members in order to have a successful SL program at UCBC.
Most importantly, she asserted that SL is a teaching method.
To close the day, Jimy thanked everyone who attended and introduced the topic for the next day.
The Second Day
The newest promotion of UCBC(L1) have more experience with SL than any other
promotion. Early this year, they conducted some economic, social and education SL projects in the DRC Realities course taught by rector, Dr. Kasali. This class has some objectives among which is to discuss challenges that the Congolese people are facing and change them into opportunities.
The second day's activity was mainly focused on ten
L1 students sharing of about their projects and representing their group. Each one of them showed how their project connected to the DRC class objectives.Justin, one of the speakers, explained clearly how the challenges of Efata Deaf School were changed into opportunities through a grant of $120 to support the economic development of the school.
Third Day
On the last day's agenda was for UCBC students to interact with SL ideas. The
goal of the SL promotion week was not to inform, but to communicate.
This made having the feedback of the audience of great importance.
