What is Global Service Learning?
Global Service Learning is a course-based or co-curricular form of cross-cultural, experiential education wherein students, faculty, staff and institutions collaborate with diverse community stakeholders on an organized service activity to address social problems and issues in the community. Richard Kiely, Director of Teaching Assistant Development, Center for Teaching Excellence, Cornell University
Global service-learning is the experience that can help students understand the problems that plague a local community through collaborative work and solution based efforts. For students it widens the extent and possibility of scholarship, but for the world it can offer an invaluable means of relief. Service-learning projects provide for a more educated and informed student (a responsible global citizen) who can use this experience to think critically about the theory of an issue, the real world outcomes and how to change them by hands-on practice. Students are forced to engage in the problems that afflict global communities at even the most local of scales.
It motivates reflection with one's own humanity and inspires personal growth, while significantly aiding the global community in its quest for a better tomorrow.
For ILR students this quest is achieved through activism and engagement in the world of work. ILRies have been realizing the potential for global service-learning in relation to the world’s needs and their academic interests and are civically engaged in around the world.
The ILR International Experience Grant has allowed students to immerse themselves in different regions of the world to "advance the world of work." One example is Michèle Malejki, ILR BS '06. A small IP grant allowed her to relate what she had learned in her courses to the economic realities that have plagued Tanzania. While helping a women's support group of the Maasai tribe, Michèle was able to use her ILR experience as a basis for enhancing the self-employment prospects of an impoverished community. Michèle met with the Maasai women to formulate a business plan to expand the benefits of the tourist sector by making and branding local jewelry. Nearly 3 years later, Michèle reports, "I still communicate with the group's leader and try to lend advice regarding the project, and have since learned that the group has grown to over 60 women. I also know that I will continue to work on the Maasai Children project. And lastly, I know that after graduation, I will be flying back to Tanzania, as both the work as well as the friendships I have made, are by no means finished."
ILR students have been participating in such projects all around the globe. Eddie Rooker and Rachel Einstein have worked in South Africa to help secure jobs for the disabled, Katie Patrick has worked through the ILO to improve the situation of impoverished communities in Nepal and Tibet, and Chris Duni has supported refugee and unionizing efforts in Thailand. The limit to ILRies' global service passions are truly endless! And at this writing, September 2008, Michèle Malejki is applying for a Fulbright to finish her humanitarian work in Tanzania.
With the help of alumni and friends, more ILR students hope to participate in group and individual global service learning projects in 2009.
Written by Blair Lapres, BS ILR '09, and Ana Stojanovic, MILR '09