My Initial Thoughts
Coming into the Global Service-Learning course, I had a very broad and vague idea of what the term “service-learning” actually meant. I generally knew that I would be working with a team of students to produce an outcome that was supposed to benefit a community in Bolivia. I think my initial instinct was to think about service-learning as somewhat synonymous with “volunteerism” or “community service,” which seems to really only highlight the “service” side of service-learning. After reading the articles What Should be Learned Through Service Learning and Comparing the Effects of Community Service and Service-Learning in just the first few weeks of this course, I realized it was much deeper than that.
As these two articles highlight, there are two sides to service-learning; service AND learning. I had previously emphasized “service” in my perception of service-learning, but what I came to realize through our readings and discussions was that there was a civic education component to the term. Both articles discuss how service-learning combines classroom instruction with real-world community work and without this connection, students may do service, but won’t understand the broader context the service resides in. Essentially, service-learning is a two-way street and its built on the foundation of reciprocity, where both parties should benefit from the relationship.
Reading and discussing these articles so early in the class really shaped the way I went about the rest of the course, both academically and professionally as a consultant for our client. Thus, this class, as a global service-learning project is one about providing solutions and deliverables for our client, but in doing so, learning about cultural, social, and political influences that affect a community of people and becoming more civically engaged citizens of the world.
The Client: CEOLI
CEOLI is a nonprofit organization based in Cochabamba, Bolivia that provides special education and therapy services for children and young adults with intellectual disabilities, most prominently down syndrome and autism. The organization and its efforts are spearheaded by their passionate leader and Director, Ronald Caballero. In just our first meeting with Ronald via Zoom a few weeks ago, I could already feel the immense passion he has for CEOLI and the work they do. Despite there being a language barrier and an added level of difficulty for engagement through a screen, his energy and passion was infectious and inspired our team to push forward to deliver the absolute best results we can.
While I knew the work CEOLI was doing was important because that’s just the nature of nonprofits, I didn’t quite realize the weight of its importance until our group worked on our cultural presentation on Bolivia. In this presentation, we dove into both surface level and deep culture in Bolivia, which already gave me more perspective on the political and social climate CEOLI operates in. What was especially eye-opening in this presentation was our section on disability in Bolivia and what that looks like in the context of healthcare and education. We found that in both healthcare and education, disability is represented in law, but not practiced in reality. There are many inclusivity laws surrounding disability, but the reality is that there are social stigmas and lack of resources that prevent individuals with disabilities from getting proper healthcare, an education that works with their needs, and eventually employment. There’s a gap in opportunities for individuals with disabilities because of this and CEOLI works to help close that gap.
The Project
The project itself is a continuation of a 10-year relationship between CEOLI (via Pittsburgh-based nonprofit, AllPeopleBeHappy) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Business. This long-term relationship once again highlights that service-learning goes beyond just service. Pitt Business students aren’t just going to Bolivia one time for a week, doing some work for the client, and calling it a day. Each year, student groups build upon the work done by the student groups in previous years and work to have long-term impact on CEOLI and the community they are part of.
The project consists of a specific scope, which includes four categories of deliverables:
- Equipment Procurement: procure 4-5 tablets or laptops for CEOLI staff (therapists, etc.) to better engage with the students at CEOLI.
- Professional Development Resources: develop a catalog of 5 easy-to-digest training materials focused on hydrotherapy and other services CEOLI offers to their students.
- Network Connections: research student-based or professional organizations within the US and connect CEOLI with at least 3 organizations to work collaboratively with for future initiatives and training of staff at CEOLI.
- Final Presentation: present all final deliverables to CEOLI and gather feedback. Then, compile feedback and offer a starting point for future groups to pick up where we left off.
Goals of the Trip
During the in-country component of this program, our team of course has the personal goals of experiencing firsthand the different parts of service-learning that we have been discussing in class for the last several weeks. None of us have been to Bolivia before, so one goal of ours is to fully immerse in the Bolivian culture through exposure to the language, food, people, and celebration. We hope to get a better sense of CEOLI, their purpose, and the people behind their purpose as well.
One thing we have emphasized in many class discussions is to use the in-person time to our advantage. After going over our itinerary, I saw that there were to be four meetings with CEOLI and Ronald, mixing in onsite service work (painting murals, etc) and professional consulting work.
One of these meetings, or at least a portion of it, will be dedicated to presenting the laptops we were able to procure prior to departure and work with CEOLI to set them up as necessary, with appropriate language settings and installation of applications that would be useful in supporting their operations. In doing this, we will be communicating with Ronald and other CEOLI staff, who mostly only speak Spanish, in real time, which will prove to be difficult. Our communication will be slower and less efficient and our group will have to heavily rely on our translators. Although it may be difficult and will require a lot of patience to execute, it is important that we do take the time to help set the computers up because of the idea of considering the entire lifecycle of a product that is discussed in the Ethics in Project Management article. Our task to procure equipment doesn’t just end when we hand over the laptops; we need to think about how they will use them and if we have to set them up so they are getting their desired use out of them.
Throughout the course of the week, our group plans to present our draft versions of the remaining deliverables and gathering feedback on them. We hope to take that feedback and start to incorporate it into our final deliverables. Before we leave, we are aiming to report to CEOLI the direction we are going in for the deliverables based on their feedback.
Additional goals of the trip are to experience points of discomfort and conflict and learn to work through them. With the conservative culture in Bolivia and the comparatively non-conservative culture of the US, we may run into cultural conflicts that might affect how we interact with our client. There will definitely be awkward pauses and misunderstandings, but as long as we stay respectful and remind ourselves to abandon power imbalances and tourist behavior, I think our experience can be extremely meaningful and rich.