Service Learning
the citizenship project
Service Learning 301 S
This course is part of your Spanish language learning experience, and offers you the opportunity to interact in a personal way with members of the local Latino community, thereby enriching your understanding of Hispanic cultures and the Spanish language. As a community-based learning experience, the course provides students with career-related experience working collaboratively with community agencies to address community concerns / issues.
Service Learning Site: The Citizenship Project
The Central Coast Citizenship Project provides immigration, naturalization, literacy, English language and new voter education integrated with leadership development in campaigns for social justice. The Citizenship Project provides organizational support to a network of self-governed grassroots groups that have developed through out organizing campaigns. More recently in response to growing interests in this agenda we provide technical assistance to other community organizations interested in developing similar projects.
Over the years The Citizenship Project has recruited, trained and mobilized well over 2,000 immigrant community volunteers to help over 20,000 people become U.S. citizens and over 10,000 register to vote. Obtained from the Central Coast Citizenship Project Website
I choose to do this site because I wanted to do something different rather than just help children do homework. I wanted to challenge myself in working with the elderly and adults as well. I found this place perfect to put in practice my teaching and communications skills for further expansion. This site was amazing and life changing, I really learned a lot from the people there trying to get their citizenship and the workers at the site as well. There were many challenges the people had to face take as an example the fact that there were elderly that only knew how to talk in Spanish, and their test was going to be in English. I became a tutor for both subjects History and English at this site. Rather than saying that they learned from me, I prefer to say that I learned from them. I learned that when you want something so bad you do anything possible to obtain it. I was taught the importance of the right they were fighting for which I have and have taken it for granted a couple of years, the right to vote. These people taught me that the right to vote is your voice, is you speaking up to what you want in life and you asking the people that represent you to do it well. My tasks where to help people at the site that were studying for their test by practicing their interview and helping them get good pronunciations to be at least seen as basic in the English language. Also, to tutor them in U.S. History with both past and present events. This service learning site enhanced my cultural knowledge and my language skills because my language skills were put to practice in both languages. I learned more about these people than they could learn about me. I learned that it is important to help our community on simple project like this, by helping them practice either an interview or study U.S. History. They are on the fight to get a voice and as a community we should all rise and help each other out. The importance of having a voice was taught to me in this site, because you realize that having the right to vote is your voice speaking to those who represent you. The right to vote is part of each persons social responsibility and sometimes people like myself will not see that and take it for granted. Thanks to this site I have now acted upon my part and represented not only myself but those who cannot vote as well. Diversity in this site is part of its nature, it has people from different backgrounds as well as people from different age groups and as a volunteer you work with all of them and learn to understand that not all of them are on the same level, regardless of their background or age. For the workers and people at the site that is fine because that is what you as a volunteer are there for, to help them get to the level they need to be at. Service Learning taught me that community service is not work without pay, it is giving something that does not have a price back to your community, your time. Overall, this site was amazing and I would definitely recommend it to any service learner looking for a place that could really help them expand on all areas, language, teaching, patience, communication, social responsibility and cultural knowledge skills.
span_301_sl-_site_presentation.pptx