A Study On My Service Learning Partner

It is known for its Pacific ocean beaches, surf spots and mountainous landscape. It is named “the savior” and is the largest coffee exporters in the world. In fact, it is the only country in Central America that does not have a coastline on the Caribbean Sea. El Salvador is a Spanish-speaking country in South America, and this is the country I will be traveling to. El Salvador is the most misunderstood country of them all. Some people say that it is quite dangerous while others say it’s quite boring compared to the rest of Central America. Most visitors say El Salvador is not safe and this is because the lack of mass tourism equals lack of information. This is the reason I chose El Salvador to travel to. This vibrant nation is very tropical with rich forests and fertile farmlands. From Volcanoes and crater lakes to surfing and Wildlife, it’s filled to the top with so many things to do! El Salvador has so many things to offer and I am eager to explore it.

It is also a “boundary spanning” activity in that it requires active involvement from people both within and outside of the classroom context, often resulting in participant contributors who represent a variety of generations, ethnicities, social groups, and experience levels (Billig and Furco, 2002, p.vii). Service-learning is designed to reduce the boundaries between an institutional campus environment and the community around it. It is designed to connect learning to real experience through service and reflection (Ball and Schilling, 2006; Becker, 2000). As a baseline to facilitate this development, service-learning is distinct from other types of community service and civic engagement experiences in that the service-learning experience must not only have a service and reflective component but also be clearly tied to the curriculum through learning objectives and theoretical underpinnings (Bloomquist, 2015; Pritchard, 2001). As Barbara Holland, former Director of the U.S. National Service-Learning Clearinghouse, shared, “Service-learning is all in the hyphen. It is the enrichment of specific learning goals through structured community service opportunities that respond to community-identified needs and opportunities.” (Kenworthy-U’Ren, Taylor, and Petri, 2006: 121).

Service Learning is an educational strategy set in place to enlighten students with instruction and experience, in addition to improve learning , teach responsibility, and support the community. Service learning is vital to the development of the student, given that it intertwines academic and personal development together. It is aimed to enhance a student’s learning in all aspects of life.

Before deciding where I wanted to do my service learning, I knew I wanted to do something that had some relevance to my degree that I will be receiving in healthcare management. I was eager to gain more experience and become more knowledgeable of how an organization operates as it relates to healthcare management. I was able to secure an opportunity to volunteer at the Dallas Veterans Affairs (VA) Hospital. After completing the required VA forms, I got partnered with Mr. Alonzo Price Jr. who is a Management Analyst in Ambulatory Care, which is the department that oversees the Primary Care Providers.

To start off, one of the dominant troubles people go through in Ecuador would be the social class. Just like in reality, appearances can tell people what social class a person is involved with without actually telling them (Wright). Just like in The Queen of Water, Virginia is mistaken as a mestizo teenager when she is actually an indigenous girl. If she had said what class she was in, she may have been treated differently. However, some mestizo Ecuadorians respect the indigenous people for who they are (Resau and Farinango ). Virginia, the main girl in the book, made many friends at her school and when they found out she was indigenous, they never stopped treating her differently; they treated her with the same respect as they had when they first met her. Also, the Indians and women in

The country of Ecuador has many different kind of nice features. For example: the rivers, the mountains, the different kinds of animals, the view of Ecuador itself, and the different wonderful places there are to visit. Ecuador is a fun place to go. Ecuador has different animals that we do not have in the United States like the Amazon frog, they have the largest export for bananas, they have places where the elevation is really high. I learned that Ecuador has the highest mountain. They also have a place in Ecuador where you can stand on the

In the summer of 2014, I started as a volunteer tutor for the Youth Tutoring Program

Before commencing service learning, I had a number of misconceptions towards people with disabilities. Before volunteering, I had a lack of understanding, viewing people with disabilities as dependent and in need of constant help. Another misconception towards people with disabilities was focusing on the person’s lack of ability rather than the individual which consequently resulted in a one-dimensional outlook towards people with disabilities. Reflecting upon these views, I am appalled with these naive and prejudice

Today I met with Teri to present my service learning project to her. I explained to her that I had made a brochure to present all the information about depression to her and that she could keep it. I felt nervous and anxious about presenting. In my brochure I included a brief definition of what depression is, predisposing factors, signs/symptoms, complications, treatments, medications, prognosis, ways to relieve stress/anxiety, and resources to gather more information on depression. As I was presenting my project I began to feel more relaxed and at ease. I tried to make my brochure as brief as possible, so that it was easy to understand, but include all the information needed as well. I feel that I did a pretty job of meeting this goal. I went

When I originally found out that my service-learning partner was from Ecuador, I tried to think of my initial opinion of Ecuadorians. Instantly the initial thing I knew about Ecuador was that they were a Spanish-speaking country. However, knowing that a country is a Spanish-speaking country doesn’t tell me anything about the country itself. So I began to research online pictures of Ecuador and began to view different stereotypes about the country. After trying to develop my first opinion about Ecuadorians, I came to believe all Ecuadorians are well-dressed and are good looking. From the pictures of Ecuador, my initial response was Ecuador has really nice landscaping but because of the layout of the Ecuador, I came to believe Ecuador is over populated. Places that are overpopulated usually live in poverty because they have a hard time keeping up economically, and this leads to further issues. As it turns out, my initial thoughts of Ecuador are along the same lines of truth that Ecuadorians actually experience these problems daily.

The country of Ecuador is adjacent to the Pacific Ocean and is located in South America.The important cultural knowledge to work with the Ecuadorian population is that most of the people are indigenous and there is a great lack of medical care and medical/health awareness.The dominant religion in Ecuador is Christianity and they speak Spanish as the primary language although they also speak various other dialects. The 2nd most common language spoken in Ecuador is called Quechua. The population of Ecuador consists of white Ecuadorians and African-Ecuadorians. Ecuadorians are warm and friendly and they hold family values in high regard. Not everyone can afford medical care in Ecuador therefore families work together and pass down natural remedies and cures to their relatives. Lack of education is common in Ecuador especially in villages with lack of infrastructure and schools and therefore it is vital to be able to connect

This trip to Ecuador is not meant as a vacation, but as a way to make a difference in the world and gain knowledge about a different culture. As I said before, I will be participating in significant amounts of service. My classmates and I will be working side by side with locals, We will gain insight into the challenges the community faces and will help build lasting solutions to help empower the community. Some examples of the projects we will be doing are: building and restoring

On average on 26% of Americans volunteer, this surprised me on how low this number truly was. I now understand why community service is required for most classes, because without us kids out volunteering the numbers would be substantially lower. This proves to be true by a study done by Debra Blum shows that hot spots for volunteer work is in college towns, such as Provo, Madison, Wisconsin and Iowa City, Iowa. To me this is pointing out that people that have higher education are more likely to give back to their communities. This can be explained with certain theories that will be broken down later in the essay along with other materials.

Ecuador is interesting country from its history and origins down to the food they eat. With beautiful landscapes that would make your mouth drop and exotic foods that might make people rethink going to Ecuador, there's more to this small country as in learning the regions and culture or what type of government they have to the flag of this great country. It may be a small country but it is big in another way- in some awesome facts about the county named Ecuador.

People often want to discuss and write about Ecuador, but nobody knows the actual reality to attract your readers. If you are going to write about it, you must develop how it will only get attention through your text because it is just another country full of suffering. While you     are writing about Ecuador, just remember that the people have mediocre rights whether it is a female or a male, a light skinned or dark skinned person. Your text shouldn’t include speech verbs such as exclaim, demand, and declare because they are too strong of words. Instead utilize words like whimpered, wailed, and wept which describes better their freedom of speech. The Ecuadorian freedom of speech is the one in which criticizing the president will cost you everything you have. Who in the world would not desire voiceless freedom of expression? Also, do not forget to describe its world of crime. A level of crime founded upon the corruption of the government that expands into drug dealing, prostitution, and an insane number of robberies. Do not call Ecuador a high point in the world based on height but instead a high place with crime in the world.