Representatives of Catholic universities from 17 countries of the five continents participated on Wednesday, 28th August, in the city of La Plata, province of Buenos Aires, in the Uniservitate meeting that takes place annually within the context of the International Service-Learning Week., organized by CLAYSS (Latin American Center for Service-Learning).
Members of the Unisevitate program at the CAYSS “Santa Clara de Asís”, last August 28th.
The international delegation shared a day that sought to integrate physical, intellectual and spiritual movement. Early in the morning they traveled about 60 km from the Argentine capital to the outskirts of Buenos Aires where they visited the Center for Solidarity Service-Learning (CAYSS) “Santa Clara de Asís”, a space where one of the members of Uniservitate, the Catholic University of La Plata (UCALP), develops activities according to the pedagogical proposal of Solidarity Service-Learning (AYSS). In the afternoon, gathered at the UCALP rectorate, they attended the presentation of the process of institutionalization of AYSS in that university, which included valuable testimonies of its different protagonists, and exchanged perspectives from their particular experiences. Then it was time for thanksgiving and community prayer in the magnificent neo-Gothic cathedral of La Plata, one of the largest Catholic temples in the world.
Exchange at UCALP on the processes of institutionalization among the participants of the meeting.
Uniservitate, the global programme for the promotion of Solidarity Service-Learning in Catholic Higher Education, convened teachers and researchers from Australia, United States, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Poland, Philippines, Singapore, Kenya, Taiwan, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Mexico and Chile. From Argentina, in addition to UCALP, there were representatives from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina,(UCA), Catholic University of Córdoba (UCC) and Catholic University of Misiones (UCAMI). There were also representatives of the Organization of Catholic Universities of Latin America (ODUCAL) and a large group from the Marist Global Network of Schools and some of the members of the Academic Sounding Board of Uniservitate such as Beatrix Bowman, Carina Rossa, Carol Ma and Daniela Gargantini.
“This is a very important visit for us because it allows us to amplify the visibility of the project we are carrying out in the neighborhood and to know and learn from what other institutions are doing. This exchange helps us a lot to improve our practices in the territory”, commented María de los Angeles Wlasiuk, UCALP’s Extension Secretary, who is in charge of the “Santa Clara de Asís” Center, at the end of the day. And, about Uniservitate, she added: “It is an institution that really guides all of us who work with this pedagogy. That is why it is a privilege to be able to meet here with them and with people who do the same as us in different realities and places of the world and to realize that we all go through similar processes and have the same challenges”.
Rita Gajate, rector of UCALP and María de los Angeles Wlasiuk, secretary of Extension of the same university, accompanied by the authors and cartoonists of the “Illustrated Stories of the World”.
At the SL Santa Clara de Asís Center in Villa Elvira, visitors were able to talk with the children who regularly attend to receive school support and other services such as dental or nutritional care provided by university students. After the administrative steps and the corresponding calls, in September 2023 UCALP started there the project “En boca de la comunidad”, an extension, research and fully curricularized activity in which the faculties of Health Sciences, Economic Sciences and Law, among others, participate.
“It is important that everyone from their own place can contribute to a more just, fraternal and loving world,” said Andres Peregalli, vice coordinator of Uniservitate. And he recalled that, as seen in the logo of this Programme, “the world is not a sphere but a polyhedron in which all faces are important. Today is a very nice image of this polyhedron that we want to build”.
Activity shared among adult and children, coloring the drawings made for the “Illustrated Stories of the World”.
The adults present there then accompanied the children in a collaborative project between UCALP and the National University of La Plata (UNALP), led by professors Carlos Pinto and Licia Rizzardi, which foresees the publication of a book of “Illustrated Stories of the World”. In anticipation of the 28th August meeting, the member universities of Uniservitate were invited to send stories related to solidarity and the values promoted by SL. Of all the stories sent, eight were selected to be included in the first volume of an anthology in which each text is illustrated by students or teachers of the UCALP and UNALP Schools of Architecture and Design and painted by the children of the “Santa Clara de Asís” Center. In a brief and warm ceremony, the eight selected stories were unveiled and then given to the children to be colored. “It is a beautiful project that integrates us all and whose result, the book, can be shared by all the children who come to the Center and by all those who want to download it from our website to continue promoting the values of solidarity,” said Maria Rosa Tapia, coordinator of Uniservitate.
The global meeting of Uniservitate was included in the celebratory programme of the 60th anniversary of the foundation of UCALP. This was commented by its rector, Rita Gajate, who enthusiastically participated in the whole day and highlighted the contribution of SL in the human formation of the students. UCALP, the second largest university in the region, is also beginning the process of institutionalizing Service-Learning in its three middle schools. Two students from one of those schools, Sabina and Juana, 16 and 17 years old, gave a brief, but significant, testimony about their experience at the SL Santa Clara de Asís Center. “I was born in the city of La Plata, but I had never visited spaces beyond the urban center. It was very shocking and a challenge to the way we look at others”, commented one of them when describing the visits they made to the neighborhood in the outskirts of La Plata.
Closing of the day with the mass in the Cathedral of La Plata celebrated by Monsignor Jorge Gonzalez, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese and concelebrated by Father Leo Simon Mwenda, assistant vice-chancellor of the University of Tangaza (Kenya).
At the end of the day, the Holy Mass was presided by Monsignor Jorge González, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of La Plata, and concelebrated by Father Leo Simon Mwenda, Assistant vice chancellor of the University of Tangaza (Africa). In his homily Gonzalez linked the Gospel of the day – the fragment in which Jesus asks that “all may be one” – and the saint that the Church remembers every 28th August – St. Augustine – with the experience of those present. “You came from far away to work together and be one,” said the bishop and after recalling the responsibility of Catholic educators and different vicissitudes of St. Augustine he suggested: ”The task is great, but we know that we are not alone. Before the possible temptation of discouragement, let us pay attention to St. Augustine”.
