Relationships at the Heart of Service Learning & Community Engagement
Download MP3Guiding Question:
- Why is it important for students go begin projects involving service learning and community engagement with relationship building?
Key Takeaways:
- Building relationships with a local school and working with them to address vision challenges of students to reduce barriers to learning and improve as student outcomes.
- Community partnerships - In this case, collaborating with a local optometrist.
- Engaging in social entrepreneurship to generate funds for the project.
- Resilience, perseverance, and staying positive as important at attributes of changemakers.
- Living your school values through service learning.
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Episode Summary
On this episode of Empathy to Impact, host Scott Jamieson visits Colegio George Washington in Cartagena, Colombia to speak with 9th grade students Miranda and Fiorella about their 8th grade service-learning project, which identified widespread vision problems in the nearby, vulnerable community of Manzanillo Del Mar. After researching visual health, partnering with an optometrist for screenings, and fundraising through a student-run waffle sale and contributions, the class provided personalized glasses to children in need, formed meaningful cross-community friendships (most notably with a girl named Aslyn), and learned practical skills—problem solving, persistence, empathy, and cooperation—that prepared them for more complex high-school projects while reinforcing their school values and the lasting impact of community-centered learning.
Discover a transformative podcast on education and learning from a student perspective and student voice, exploring media, media literacy, and media production to inspire citizens in schools through a media lab focused on 21st-century learning, empathy to impact, Global citizenship, collaboration, systems thinking, service learning, PBL, CAS, MYP, PYP, DP, Service as Action, futures thinking, project-based learning, sustainability, well-being, harmony with nature, community engagement, experiential learning, and the role of teachers and teaching in fostering well-being and a better future.
