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…?