Professors and students from 20 countries visited a Service-Learning project at Margarita Barrientos Foundation
A delegation of almost fifty students, teachers and university researchers from twenty countries that are members of the Uniservitate programme from CLAYSS, visited yesterday the Margarita Barrientos Foundation in Villa Soldati as part of the activities of the XX international Week of Service-Learning (AYSS), to be held in Buenos Aires.
During the encounter in the building that once were Margarita Barrientos home, in which today they have a community kitchen and a kindergarten, in the Piletones neighbourhood, the international delegation was able to known a Service-Learning project of diseases prevention and pet care that University of Buenos Aires (UBA) has been carrying out there since 2006.
Marcela Martínez Vivot, Director of the interdisciplinary project ‘One world, one health’ and three veterinarians who learned about the proposal as students and continue today as volunteers, shared their experiences and goals with the international delegation.
‘I saw a board that said: ‘if you want to learn how to vaccinate, subscribe here’, said Laura Gramajo when she told us about the origin of the engagement she has had after so many years. Also, she added, that for students it is important to participate in experiences like these because they ‘provide us a speech, with a language that is not taught in the university’ and that Service-Learning is the bridge between both languages.
Currently, the project involves twenty chairs of the Faculty of Veterinary and more than ten UBA careers, including Psychology, Anthropology, Social Communication, Art, Agronomy, Graphic Design, Clothing Design, Dentistry and Sociology. The service offered not only cares for pets, but also focuses on prevention and education on the treatment and care of animals. Students participate through supervised pre-professional internships, a workshop of the Rural and Urban Sociology chair, or as volunteers.
Marcela Vivot shared some of the activities carried out by students from different disciplines. From a study by Psychology students, a character was born, Super-vet, ‘dressed’, from the Fashion Design volunteers and the protagonist of stories in a magazine produced by Communication students. From Architecture a dice was created to play learning about personal care and animal care.
The aim, said Vivot, is to improve the health and well-being of the residents of Villa Soldati through prevention, which begins with the youngest. The purpose of working with university students is to promote skills, values and prosocial attitudes.
In addition to the agreement with the Margarita Barrientos Foundation, the ‘One World, One Health’ UBA project works with the Luis Pasteur Institute of Zoonoses, INTA, ANMAT and other institutions.
Bernard Luwerekera, from Kisubi University (Uganda) who was surprised by the visit to the place and the work they do daily, said: ‘this is very interesting because it was possible to identify the problem and find the appropriate response.’
