Students experience international development first-hand
[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/mexico.jpg” caption=”McMaster students Meghan Burns, left, and Ally Enriquez, right, take a break from digging with Leonardo, centre.”]
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Like many students, Meghan Burns headed south for Reading Week. Unlike most, however, she was heading to work.
Burns, along with 19 others, spent her week working with the Cuernavaca Center for Intercultural Dialogue on Development in Cuernavaca, Mexico, south of Mexico City, as part of the Office of Community Service-Learning and Civic Engagement's Reading Week service-learning experience.
Service-learning is a form of experiential education in which students learn through actions and reflection while working with others to apply theories learned in the classroom to work in the field.
The group was tasked with both learning about Mexican culture and society as well as performing a service for members of the community: in this case, expanding the living quarters for a large family that had outgrown their tiny home.
While building the structure the team stayed with the family and later worked in a large squatters' settlement, where they met a family that lived in an abandoned train car. The experience gave them a glimpse of what everyday life is like for many Mexicans.
"You have an idea of what it's like, but you're really not prepared to see such poverty up close," said Burns, who had previously volunteered on a service learning trip to Ecuador. "It's really a powerful, life-altering experience."
For Burns the trip may have been just that, as the fourth year biology student is now considering a career in international development, something she says is a direct result
of her experience with service learning.
"You learn so much more by getting out and seeing the world," she said. "I've realized that there are so many things I can do to help others."
Burns, along with students who took part in trips to Little Rock, Arkansas, Winnipeg, Manitoba and downtown Hamilton presented their experiences to friends, family and community partners Sunday. According to Burns, the exercise was much-needed.
"I feel like I need to take my mother to Mexico so that she can understand why I've become so passionate about development issues."
The Office of Community Service-Learning and Civic Engagement has been running Reading Week service-learning trips for the past three years. It also organizes an annual volunteering event, Mac Serve, for students to volunteer and engage with the city of Hamilton.
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