Service Learning
SBS 485S: Global Citizenship: Applied Research and International Service Learning in Rural Communities
Course Description: The ethnographic research and service learning course explores a variety of areas of knowledge that are critical to understanding rural communities in the global age, including the impact of globalization on local economies, the formation of transnational cultural identities, and the revitalization and decline of local cultures. Students reside in one local community of a rural area and, under supervision of the instructor, collect ethnographic field data, provide services to local communities.
This course took a month in the region of Bonar Spain, near Leon with the professor Dr. Gutierrez. While there we focused on the work that was assigned to us at the CRUZ ROJA ESPAÑOLA de Boñar. Over the month I worked with the group for more than an accumulated 30+ hours doing various things, from helping around the office, to going off and helping buy the food and necessary things that some of these elderly people needed, which is who we mostly worked with. I volunteered because my spanish was a bit more developed than the rest of the group to run a "como alimentarse" talks in various towns with the girls from the Red Cross, this was meant to be like a seminar to guide them on how to be healthy, those were always really interesting because of the elderly peoples input. I also volunteered a day to to go the headquarters in Leon, to have a class with some of the kids that went to the red cross for extra curricular activities, it was kids from various ages. But my favorite part from this was the daily visits we would do to the certain people of the towns, to check up on them regularly and to check if their version of what we call "life alert" was active. While the visits they would tell us their stories and share some food or simply laugh. They were mostly older people without families, and the fact that some of us young people were there and were actually interested in their culture and stories brought a lot of happiness to them, and myself. I met a lot of people on this experience and made a lot of connections as well, so I take a lot from this especially the internal satisfaction it brought me.