As part of the visit to London of the Uniservitate General Coordinator, María Rosa Tapia, St. Mary’s University organized a day conference for discussing and exploring service-learning practices and their institutionalization.
Managers and faculty from different St. Mary’s University departments participated in the meeting held on the beautiful campus of Twickenham. St. Mary’s University is part of the Uniservitate programme, which has been carrying out joint activities with Uniservitate for several years. Indeed, the University of Deusto has collaborated with the event organization as a reference for the Western Europe-South hub of Uniservitate.
That day was an opportunity to reinforce this partnership and was also attended by representatives from Leeds Trinity University, a member of the Cathedral Group Universities, an association that includes fifteen universities and colleges in the United Kingdom.
One of the outstanding service-learning experiences developed by St. Mary’s University is the one in the area of Nutrition that provides cooking lessons for the elderly, especially men, who live alone. In addition to learning healthy cooking tips, they have a group of people to socialize with and help them cope with loneliness. It is a project implemented to address a social problem in the community where the University is located, where, as observed by María Rosa Tapia, “there is no extreme poverty as in other regions, but rather extreme loneliness”.
During those days in London, María Rosa also met with representatives of two other institutions where the number of people interested in service-learning initiatives is growing year by year: Patricia Zunszain and Donata Puntil from King’s College London, and Hannah Cowell and Hannah Tweddell from the University of Bristol.
“Beyond languages, locations and contexts, it is very encouraging to continue meeting with colleagues with whom we share the search for a better education that enables us to integrate academic learning with meaningful service to the community to address its real needs,” said Tapia. She highlighted the importance of the Latin American Center for Service-Learning (CLAYSS) to continue networking within the UK and globally to further promote service-learning.
