Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
With a programme with numerous meetings and spaces for dialogue, the Uniservitate On-site Regional Meeting of the Latin America and Caribbean hub was held in Lima (Peru) from 20 to 23 May. The event, entitled ‘Innovating with our roots: creating a model of integral formation with Service Learning’, brought together at the headquarters of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) some thirty representatives of universities accompanied by this hub or recently incorporated into Uniservitate through the proposal of the Memberships, and Leticia López Villarreal, from the Academic Sounding Board of this Programme. Teachers and students from PUCP also participated and shared different and inspiring spaces for exchange and training with researchers, community partners and university authorities from this and other Peruvian universities.
Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
‘One lesson we took away from this meeting is that each university must recognise what exists and weave from its own experiences, particularities and convictions the way to implement service-learning,’ said PUCP Rector Julio del Valle. He added: “The university must act as a bridge, because it cannot be isolated from what is happening outside. We must not only think about theory, but turn it into practice and advocacy. That is why we are committed to the idea that service-learning is what this world urgently needs.
In addition to the host Peruvian university, which together with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile were the organisers of the event, the following universities were present: the Catholic University of Argentina, the Javeriana University of Bogotá, the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador, the Catholic University of Pernambuco, the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná, the University of Monterrey, the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaíso, the La Salle University of Mexico and the Catholic University of Santo Toribio de Mogrovejo.
Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
Chantal Jouannet, Rocío Paz Fontana Venegas and José Ignacio Sepúlveda Maulen, from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and, representing CLAYSS-Uniservitate, Candelaria Ferrara and Paula Basilico, from Argentina, were present for the coordination of Uniservitate in the region. From Mexico, Leticia López Villarreal, brought the experience of a model on a methodology of action without harm.
The Vice Chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Father Osvaldo Fernández de Castro, also came from Chile. He spoke about the relevance of spirituality in academic work, and encouraged a moment of reflection on the great questions of human existence – who we are, where we come from and where we are going, and he stated that ‘our themes’ are also those of the Church and society as a whole at this time. He referred to issues such as the search for truth, choice of teachers, care for the common home, dignity of persons, human life, social issues such as poverty, migration, peace, mental health, feminism, sexual diversity, AI and others.
Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
All the working sessions were based on the speech that Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, addressed to the rectors and authorities of Catholic universities who visited him last November in Rome, in the framework of the V Global Symposium Uniservitate. At various points he alluded to Pope Francis’ call to transform the academic space into a house of the heart, which Tolentino describes as the place where one learns to put head, hands and heart together and researches how to resolve in solidarity the many complex problems facing humanity and the planet today.
The meeting included a visit to Caritas Lima, a community partner of the PUCP, where the Uniservitate delegations got to know three service-learning projects: the course ‘Psychology, exclusion and social inclusion’, which intervened in the Nuestra Señora de Monserrate home; the volunteer Itinerant Legal Clinics, which provided legal advice to people in vulnerable situations; and the course ‘Psychology and violence’, which addressed communities of women, the elderly and schoolchildren.
Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
On the last day, a seminar was held in hybrid mode in which more than a hundred people from various countries participated. The Academic Direction of Social Responsibility (DARS), of the PUCP, was in charge of the activity that, through the testimony of experiences of the Catholic University of Pernambuco, the Pontifical University Javeriana, and the Pontifical Catholic University of Perú, tried to answer the question: “How does Learning and Service contribute to the mission of universities? ‘How does Learning and Service contribute to the mission of universities?’. The seminar is available on Youtube.
Photos: Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
The regional meeting of Uniservitate included other spaces in which the regional plan of the LAC hub of Uniservitate, networking, institutionalisation and reflection were addressed. There was also an introductory meeting on solidarity service-learning aimed at teachers and another specifically aimed at a dozen deans of the PUCP.
The words of María Angélica Pease, Director of the Academic Direction of Social Responsibility at PUCP, can sum up the spirit of many of those present: “We have generated a valuable network of contacts with Catholic universities in the region. The idea is that the service-learning methodology should dialogue with the reflection on teaching and university social responsibility that we already carry out, and make us rethink the learning process.
