Service-Learning VIP: A.J.

 

In high school, the word, "service-learning" was foreign to me, even though I was engaging in service learning activities everyday. Starting my sophomore year, I became a peer mediator, and I devoted my study halls and lunch breaks to helping my fellow classmates solve conflicts in a nonviolent manner. I learned how to approach conflict in my own life, and how to provide assistance to others. I went to college in pre-Katrina New Orleans, where poverty was a major struggle for the most vulnerable populations. As a Big Sister of Louisiana, I went to a neighborhood school and tutored my "Little" in a room that was divided in to four separate classrooms, because there were not enough classrooms for all the different grade levels. Sadly, I was only able to work with my "little" for about a semester. Due to her struggle with scoliosis, she was unable to return to school because she required a wheel chair that her parents could not afford to get for her, and the school was not wheelchair accessible.

After completing my undergraduate degree I volunteered at the University of Chicago Children's Hospital and spent three years assisting with bereavement counseling to neighborhood families struggling with grief.  Through this experience, I realized that I had found a passion for social work, and I am now a second year graduate student at the University of Texas-Austin School of Social Work. Last summer I was fortunate to spend four weeks in Ghana, West Africa, where I participated in a service-learning course by assisting the Eve's Foundation. Eve's Foundation is a Ghanaian non-governmental organization committed to the provision of adequate and effective information, education and counselling on matters relating to reproductive health. Special emphasis is given to childbirth education with the goal of reducing the high rate of maternal and infant morbidity in Ghana. 

As a volunteer, I interviewed women at the Ghanaian Police Hospital, where they shared stories of sisters and friends who died because they were uninformed about the signs of labor. On woman shared with us a story about her sister who died while she was seven months pregnant. She was unaware that she was pregnant and believed she had the flu.  The goal of the Eve's Foundation is to provide materials for women to have in their homes, because when they are able to see a doctor or a midwife, their visits are limited to about three minutes, leaving little time for questions about health and post natal practices. Our group was able to design and provide pamphlets on breastfeeding and the signs of child labor as well as video taped clips of an Eve's Foundation class that we were able to upload on the internet.

This spring I am finishing my graduate school experience as an intern with the National Committee on Community Service in Washington, D.C., where I am working with Learn and Serve America. In the short time that I have been here, I have had the opportunity to witness how service-learning can have a positive impact on communities across the country by empowering young people to identify a problem and their community and provide solutions. Although my educational journey is coming to an end, I hope that service-learning will continue to be a big part of my life.

- A.J. C., graduate student, University of Texas-Austin, and intern with Learn and Serve America