Service Learning with my WORK

Service Learning October 2006

Last year a group of FWP students traveled to a marginal neighborhood of San Jose to work with a community organization called Vecinos. The students painted the building on the inside and outside with fantastically bright colors of blue, pink and yellow with local participants of youth groups associated with Vecinos. Just as Vecinos had asked.

Those colors still shine one year later. The energy from that Service Learning experience a year ago remains in Vecinos and represents the fun & inviting environment that is offered to the low-resourced people that find new opportunities in that urban grassroots building.

Thus, the effects from the Service Learning project from last year continue to help.

This year a group of FWP students traveled to Vecinos to perform a huge and difficult project. Vecinos has a backyard that has been not been used productively for years. That 20x20 meter plot of land has two tall trees, and was completely covered with 2 meter tall weeds, and was totally filled with trash.

Working with local children from the various self-help groups that Vecinos offers, the FWP students cleaned out all of the trash, pulled weeds, cut down the grass, removed rocks, put up a permanent tent, painted the gate and also a soccer goal on two opposing walls, and and and…so much more. Finding all kinds of surprises, such as dirty diapers, an old washing machine, a couch, a single roller-blade made us aware about the importance of solid-waste management. We filled over 15 hug garden trash bags. Furthermore, we worked with very little tools and recognized the weight that hard manual-work has on a body in the hot sun.

Despite the physical challenges, the FWP students learned the importance of taking initiative and creating projects. In a seemingly impossible situation, creativity can stimulate inspiration. Working for only 3 days, the FWP students helped to transform that wasteland of a backyard into a community space that can now be used for: group activities, as a play area and a place for meetings. The opportunity to do Service Learning with Vecinos was beneficial because the FWP students helped the organization improve their facilities and in return we learned about that powerful organization that does so much good for that underprivileged neighborhood.

Plus, we remembered to pull weeds from the roots, just like our mothers taught us when they we kids.

Hopefully the results of this year’s Service Learning will last, just as last year’s paint has. And next year…?

The Sarapiqui Field Trip

Look how fast the banana workers sort bananas.

What an educational ecotouristic boat ride in the Sarapiqui River.

The Dole Plantation

Sarapiqui Field Trip

Learning about banana plantations, unions’ struggles, environmental conservation, subsistence farming, eco-tourism, wildlife, deforestation, contamination, transnational….

It is amazing how much we can learn in a two-day field trip.

This past weekend, 25 students and 2 LAC leaders traveled to the North-Western region of Costa Rica called Sarapiqui for an intense and overwhelming field trip.

Our first activity was with the Public Relations Representative of Dole. In his hour-and-a-half lecture, we walked around the plantation and learned everything there is to know about banana growing, (well, on a commercial farm). We even entered the banana processing plant and observed the workers fast at work as they cleaned the green bananas, put fungicide on them, put stickers on them, boxed them and packed them. We learned that there is so much work in the banana industry. Plus, the banana history of Costa Rica is long and dynamic because it was an imported crop and now it is a primary crop.

Throughout the rest of the day, we visited La Selva Tropical Reserve, had two lectures with the Banana Union leader (who has been in jail 22 times for his environmental & social justice efforts), and a true environmental conversationalist (a.k.a. – a worrier). From these three ladder activities, we learned about the truth.

Commercial banana plantations, like Dole, Chiquita, El Monte, do not have good labor rights. The workers are exploited through their pay, lack of benefits and exposure to harsh chemicals.

The forests are being cut down and rivers are being polluted without control to enhance the growth of the banana and pineapple farms.

The government too often sides with the transnational that operate large businesses in Costa Rica, so environmental and labor law suits frequently favor the big companies.

Yet, there are many small farmers that live off the land and feed their families. There are some farmers that grow a limited amount of crops and sell them locally. They take from the Earth what they need and do not exploit anyone or anything.

And Eco-Tourism attempts to show tourists the beauty of the land and teach them about the negative impacts of the big banana and pineapple plantations. We went on a boat ride along the wide Sarapiqui River, which is filling up with pesticides and fertilizers from the bordering farms, and we saw a small amount of wildlife. Managing to survive, we saw Howler Monkeys, White-Faced Monkeys, a 2 meter crocodile, bats and a dead iguana. Our guide told us that, before, there was so much wildlife. But now the bordering forests are gone, and airplanes spray the neighboring farms and the wind carries the chemicals into the lives of the wild animals and remaining plants.

So much has changed in this area, and we saw many perspectives about the current reality. Banana plantations do whatever possible to produce a cosmetic banana that the world market will value, and these corporate farms value money more than the environment. Thus, buy organic bananas. Support fair (not free) trade. Write a letter and ask transnational to honor workers’ rights and protect the environment.

The Friends World Program definitely does demonstrate experiential education, and give us the tools to change the world’s issues for a better future.

For pictures, please click here.