As we’re nearing our journey to Puerto Rico, I am happy to be reflecting on the experience so far and the work that we have been doing for Caras Con Causa. Caras Con Causa is an organization that has taken the challenges Puerto Rico faces into their own hands. Puerto Rico has been facing infrastructure struggles ever since Hurricane Maria, political unrest as they fight between being a territory, a state or their own country, and a 40% poverty rate. The cycle of natural disasters, neglection from the US government and the trend for people to move to the mainland has perpetuated these issues. Caras has seen these issues and acted on them by using grants and some government funding. They have broken up their initiatives into three main groups – ecology, education, and community. Their ecology program focuses on raising plants, testing water, and educating students about the environment. Their education program is spearheaded by their very own school, Rosalina C. Martinez, which has 250 students grades 6-9. They also educate students on college prep, assistance with scholarships, financial planning and an internship program. The third segment is for serving community members by providing summer camps, elder visits, tutoring, meals, and connections to the social services community members need.

From what I’ve seen regarding Caras, I can see an organization that has immense pride in Puerto Rico and works tirelessly to make it a better place. It appears their resources can never be enough because they are one organization trying to combat an island full of challenges. Our primary contact, Adriana, wears so many hats she couldn’t even explain them all to us, and we have yet to meet the CEO Michael for the same reason. Our task as a consulting team is to diversify their funding by tapping into Puerto Rican donors living on the mainland. This way, Caras can be less reliant on governmental funding and hopefully grow their program sustainably.

We have broken up this scope into researching which social media platforms to use, which audience to target, how to format media, what a donor conversion would look like, a short term social media plan for them, and an overall report detailing our research and suggestions paired with a presentation. Sofia, Abha, and I have really hit the ground running by implementing weekly meetings every Monday, class times every Tuesday and Thursday, and meeting with Meade Johnson to hear her input as an experienced marketing consultant and professor at Pitt. Our detailed timeline has kept us on track so that we have all our research and deliverables completed heading into our trip in two days. While we have spent a lot of time pouring into our work, we are fully prepared to rip it apart once we finally meet with Michael. This brings me to the challenges we’ve experienced and will experience working alongside Caras this semester.

Because Caras has so many commitments, it is safe to say that our project is not their main priority – those they serve will always take that position. With this comes a small communication barrier for us. We have been unable to show Caras our work this entire semester because time is a limited resource. Anther struggle is that our primary connection – Adriana – is pulled in so many directions that she refrained from answering some of our initial questions that require Michael’s input. Because we haven’t met with Michael, this means we had to make our best guesses on what Caras wanted from us. This is why we are very prepared to have to back track on the bulk of our work, which will be a setback for our team.

Another barrier we face is the language barrier. This is arguably going to be the largest barrier for us – especially within Puerto Rico next week. Adriana told us how Guaynabo and Cataño face tension because Guaynabo is wealthier and often privileged enough to speak English alongside Spanish. She said we will find that most road signs in Guaynabo are in English which is really discriminatory towards people that cannot read English (the majority of Cataño). Knowing this, it is easy to see how there may be a subconscious power imbalance seeing as we are only able to speak English, and we will only be able to verbally communicate with those that can also speak English. Not only is there a power imbalance, but it will also be very hard in general to fully engage with community members without knowing Spanish – especially while working alongside them. Thankfully, I know enough Spanish that I may be able to get my point across, but I do not know enough vocab to articulate our project as effectively as I would like to.

While we start the final preparations for our trip to Puerto Rico, we have created three main goals for our project while we are there. We hope to meet with Michael to receive initial feedback, adjust our work accordingly, fully experience Caras’ three primary programs (taking photos and interviewing people), and sharing our adjustments with Michael before leaving. We are working to finish a presentation summarizing our work thus far before landing in Puerto Rico. This will hopefully help us articulate our work easily when we meet with Michael and have visuals that will aid conversations with other staff that may not speak fluent English.

I am so grateful for this program and the way that the Global Service-Learning class has set us up so far. I appreciate that we discussed the ways service-learning initiatives can be poorly executed. It was great to shed light on the fact that we must be aware of our own privilege. It may seem as though we are sacrificing by serving them, but this course emphasizes the idea that service learning is reciprocal, and they are also making sacrifices to allow our service. With this in mind, I am eager to enter the program with an abundance of gratitude.