Students and professors who carry out service-learning projects distinguished with the Uniservitate Award 2024 shared motivations and experiences among themselves and with researchers and university authorities in the framework of the V Global Symposium Uniservitate, held in Rome on November 7th and 8th.
The Award contemplated the trip to participate in such event for one student and one professor for each winning experience in each of the seven regions that make up the Uniservitate network. To them were added some professors and students who had received special mentions and whose travel expenses were covered by the higher education institutions they represented or by themselves.
The day before the Symposium began, 58 students and educators from 23 Catholic universities participated in an open-hearted meeting. Held on the terraces of the Roman campus of the Australian Catholic University, the meeting was an opportunity to deepen the meaning of the service they provide through their projects in relation to the activity itself and to their own vocation, the links between students and professors and the spiritual dimension of such experiences.
The young people admitted, for example, that they became involved in service-learning projects because of the enthusiasm of their peers who had already done so, out of curiosity, the pleasure of sharing and learning from others, the conviction of being able to generate a change in government policies, or because they were attracted by the possibility of putting into practice the knowledge they were acquiring as they progressed in their careers.
The professors for their part, commented among other concepts, that by participating in service-learning projects they have the opportunity to exercise the “ministry of presence,” which implies competence in what is being done, communication and mediation among the actors, while providing autonomy to the students. “When students are focused on learning, a positive bond is created in which they have something to offer and the student also becomes a teacher,” concluded one of the groups of teachers after a dialogue in which they also discovered that even though they are in different countries, they have similar problems and that, in a collaborative way, they can work together.
The programme of the two days of the Symposium included at various times the “students’ voices”, spaces in which the winning experiences were briefly presented and, in simultaneous Sessions, they were developed in greater depth divided into groups according to their link with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The day after the closing of the Symposium, during the private audience offered by Pope Francis to the participants of the event, the students presented the Holy Father with a synthetic poster of their respective projects.
In their dialogues during the previous days, the students had emphasized that the practice of service-learning in solidarity had strengthened the faith that their families had passed on to them and had offered them the possibility of experiencing what the Gospel teaches about putting others before oneself; an eloquent expression of service-learning as a link with the transcendent.