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AKUNDA: Service learning isn’t about community

Many volunteer trips are actually quite selfish

With spring break around the corner, I’m thinking about what people are setting out to do with their free time. Spring break is an often-discussed topic at the University. My favorite discussions add nuance to otherwise narrow narratives about what University students can do with their free time. Mine is not a discussion of the merits of Alternative Spring Break, or ASB, but how its trips fit in a larger conversation about service learning at the University. My aim here is to question the motivations behind the community service projects with which so many are eager to engage.

ASB serves as a great proxy for debates on service learning as it models many problems that short-term service projects face. On the surface, ASB is a week-long project which asks students to shell out a lot of money to “help” the poor. First, how much “help” can one provide the poor in a week? Secondly, could the money being used for individual students’ transport, housing and food be put to better use? What can a student who studies finance accomplish by playing board games with an inner-city child for a week if the student doesn’t think about how the child’s family might be pushed toward predatory payday lenders? ASB has tried to respond to critiques of their model by having more local projects, but the question remains: Who do service learning projects serve? This question is not new to college campuses.

By starting with students, service learning disservices the communities with which students engage. Most of the community service I’ve seen at the University is for students to expand their horizons.

Service learning at the University facilitates students’ emotional growth by exposing them to communities they would never otherwise interact with under normal circumstances, hoping they gain empathy for those unlike them. This logic is incredibly problematic, as it not only focuses on the student as opposed to the stakeholders in underserved communities but also claims exposure will lead students to be better citizens in the face of these issues without much basis. The projects which the University encourages students to be a part of such as ASB, Madison House, Jefferson Public Citizens and the like are reactions to poverty. They do not address the causes of poverty, like limited access to fair financial systems. When students are transported to the locations of poverty, poor people and the circumstances in which they live become foreign to students, and students do not see the interconnectedness of their day-to-day actions and poverty. When they return from their short trips, students return to normal circumstances; they are no better off, as they have a limited understanding of poverty as something that happens somewhere else.

As consumers of an education, community service becomes a product, which we hope that by buying, we become better people. As students, we need to understand that service learning is part of the product mix our University sells to us. The communities we serve are part of a value chain. It appears the University cares more about the “University student experience” than the communities to which you venture when you learn in action. Service learning enhances the University’s image to you as a consumer of the University. If serving the community was at the center of service learning, then we would have less short-term projects that send uninformed students to poor communities.

Those interested in community development know the best way to solve community problems is through community buy-in. You need interest. Our University’s interest is in the University and us. At the end of your service-learning trip, no one is going to ask the people you worked with about the impact of your project on their community. At the end of it, you will be asked to write a customer review, because, after all, who would be better in pushing a product than a real-life consumer? Whether it is for an application to another self-serving project (your career development) or to push other students to join in those efforts, many of our service learning projects are, to be blunt, incredibly selfish. I don’t believe this is necessarily a bad thing. However, I question the false altruism through which we perform community service, and I am frustrated the by fact that the University facilitates this empty charity. Yes, let’s help disadvantaged communities, but let’s understand there are better ways to do it than service learning, which our University has created just for us.

If you still want to “help” the poor after this article then please do. But don’t get involved — get interested. This means looking at the causes of poverty holistically with a focus on what everyday decisions you can make to help — not week-long projects. It may mean working closer to home. It may mean working on projects in which you don’t interact with people from your community. At worst it could mean you still participate in service learning, but do not pretend it is for the community.

Jacqueline Akunda is a Viewpoint writer.

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