Service Learning Project: Habitat For Humanity

Service learning is a method of “knowing and doing”. In my experience, it’s the one of the best way to learn the material as well reflect what we learn by helping the community. For me even more than doing it for the grades, I like to serve other people whole heartedly. The feeling of fulfillment after you serve is beyond ourselves when we extended our arm for the people in the community.

For my service learning project, I volunteered with two different organizations. My first volunteering was through Habitat for Humanity for Make a Difference Day. SLU Habitat for Humanity is an organization on the campus whose mission is to “actively engage in social events, fundraisers, and education and advocacy campaigns to further the mission of Habitat

The Women’s Safe House is a domestic violence service for people dealing with domestic abuse. The mission of this shelter is to provide shelter to women and their children who have been subjected to domestic violence. They offer services to help empower women to make informed choices about their future. On my first day of the shelter, I and five of my work colleague organized Sunday Brunch for sixty people in the shelter including both women and their children. Once we arrived at the shelter, the staff there allowed us to take over the kitchen to make sure everything was prepared before these women and children started coming to the dining room. Once the food was out in appropriate place, we let the women serve the food for themselves and their kids. I could see the contentment in the women and kids’ faces. We knew right away that they had been waiting for that days’ brunch for many hours. Apart from organizing brunch, I spend my time helping in the shelter with things like painting the walls, playing with the kids, and helping women apply for housing as well as

The more you serve and engage in the community, the deeper understanding you have about the issues that exists in our society. It allows you to use information learned in the class to do something meaningful for your community. The service gives us opportunity to stretch our ability to reach across boundaries of difference. The issues of diversity are so crucial to be reflected within feminism because without establishing a community within women, we won’t be able to demand equal rights based on gender. In order for us to actually understand and accept the differences within diverse group, it’s important to be able to go in the community and act on those insights gained from class. The value of service learning in the Women’s Studies classroom is to understand more fully the diversity of women’s experiences. Not only that but to develop a deeper understanding of the ways in which gender roles have had an impact on the life choices available to women. Once we do that, we can finally make sense of the ways in which gender intersects within ethnicity, class, and sexuality, and then, engage in ways that leads to social change. This way community benefits because when we go to the community more educated, learning to accept the differences then only we can educate people in the community to do the