Service Learning Activities

August 14, 2024

Lenten Campaign 2023 – Reconciliation For An Inclusive Nation

Past Events, Service Learning Activities

FSC 010: Franciscan Commitment to Peace, Tangaza University

Facilitator: Mr. Richard Kakeeto

Mr. Richard Kakeeto, a lecturer at IST and ISRF has been facilitating Franciscan Education (Lent/community/ SCC). He has been facilitating students with the Franciscan Commitment to Peace unit course. In partnership with the Catholic Justice and Peace Department, the students are engaged in a series of reflections and actions with the community. The lecturer has been engaging the students in visiting different Small Christian Communities in selected parishes in Buruburu, Eastlands among others. In these visits, the students are engaged in learning experiences such as Jumuia, Civic responsibility, Prayers, Bible-sharing among others and are able to facilitate these experiences to the community.

The students were engaged in the Lenten Campaign for 2023 under the Theme: Reconciliation for an Inclusive Nation. “Reconciled by God, one in Christ, called to reconciliation – 2 Corinthians 5:18.” Some of the objectives of the lecturer and the students towards he community were to:

Promote awareness: The campaign sought to raise awareness about the importance of reconciliation and inclusivity in building a strong and harmonious
Encourage dialogue: We aimed to facilitate constructive dialogue and meaningful conversations that promote understanding, empathy, and forgiveness among individuals and
Foster healing and forgiveness: The campaign focused on encouraging individuals to let go of past grievances, promote forgiveness, and work towards reconciliation, fostering a sense of healing and unity.
Advocate for social justice: We sought to address systemic inequalities and promote social justice to create an inclusive society where everyone’s rights and dignity are respected.

According to the lecturer, in Week One, the students together with the community – Christian families reflected on Reconciliation. The specific reconciliation for that year was an invitation to reflect on ways in which human acts accelerate injustice.

In week two the reflections were on Mental Wellness. They acknowledged that cases of mental illness in the community were on the rise. Economic hardships, changing family dynamics, intense secular values that draw people to pleasure and consumerism and a sweeping sense of hopelessness among especially young people and families, were driving people into anxieties and depressions which sometimes result in murders and suicides. The Christian communities recognized that they have a duty to strengthen good relationships in their neighborhoods, places of work and other interactive space as a deliberate measure to slow incidents of mental illness.

What is the present and future of our youth? This was the reflection in Week Three, whose focus was Youth: The Hope of Our Society. The groups confirmed that positive social change is brought about by people who from their youthful age desire to make the world a better place to live in. These are the people who start to seek justice and peace from a tender age. They see everyone around them as fellow human beings, regardless of tribe, race or social status. With constant prayer and looking up to God for guidance, any young person can change a situation from bad to a peaceful one.

In Week Four they reflected on Economic Justice. From the reflection, the students confirmed that most Kenyans are hard-working, always ready to put in long hours to ensure a living. Besides that, they noted that communities have huge wasted resource in form of educated but unemployed young women and men. They helped the community to reflect on questions such as: Why is the cost of living rising? Why are many Kenyans finding it difficult to make ends meet? What are our values as Kenyans?

In Week Five, they dwelled on Ecological Education. Climate justice is a strong global call. Protection of the environment and 23

appreciation that nature deserves care are matters of right, not simply a choice. We contribute to climate change whose effects are seen in the unpredictable droughts, flooding, drying of rivers and swelling of lakes and oceans. Both human life and the lives of other living things are now at a great risk. In the recent past, the Church together with other global actors have called on every one of us to deeply reflect on ways that ensure we stop destroying forests, logging, clearing bushes, dumping, misuse of agricultural chemicals and all other forms of environmental carelessness which negatively impact human life and fuel strange diseases. Appropriate land use contributes immensely to food security. There is need for continued reflection and education on ways to ensure proper agriculture methods, including seed production, food storage, distribution and consumption for a healthy nation, and bring down this discussion to the grassroots where the impact of ecological education is most needed.

In general, the graces of the Lenten Campaign by the students towards the community was seen in the little actions they did altogether with the community throughout that period of prayer, fasting and committing to acts of charity.

Street families at the feeding programme at Mamma Africa

August 14, 2024

Service Learning Integration In Teaching Learning And Research

Past Events, Service Learning Activities

1. Mamma Africa Italia Onlus, International Kenya – Mathare Project

An experiential visitation was undertaken by the Africa hub members to learn on how Service Learning is being integrated in teaching by a Theology lecturer. At TUC, integration of service learning in teaching, learning and research is a prerequisite methodology. Through this approach, the faculty members integrate the courses they teach with community service. Fr. David Karanja, a full-time faculty member at the School of Theology (SOT), responds to the needs of families living in the streets through provision of basic quality education and feeding programme to these families in Mathare slums of Nairobi.

The vision of Mamma Africa is to be the leading organization in the primary support and platform for addressing problems faced by people living in the slums. The mission is to empower slum families towards self-sustenance, advocating rights and dignity of the slum dwellers hence contribute towards a free and just society based on justice and equality.

The objectives of the project:

Engage the families in the slum to work together on issues of common
Provide transformative education/ Capacity
Work in partnership with other organization, county Government & national government toward sustain- able project that uplift the lives of peoples living in
Advocate on the rights and dignity of people living in the slum.
Link children from the slum to the rest of the world through distant adoption and twining the schools

Mathare is the second-largest collection of slums in Nairobi, Kenya.

It stretches over 3 miles squared yet shelters over 600,000. The majority live at under 1 USD per day and most houses are fabricated out of metal sheets, wooden poles, cloth, and mud. Smooth tarmacked road and cemented footpaths are non-existent so dust perpetually fills the air alongside the smoke from burning rubbish at random intervals.

According to Fr. Karanja, most residents here live below the poverty line, with no education or job prospects. The socioeconomic opportunities and reliable sources of income are limited– particularly for the women, who are often burdened with the duty of single parenthood. Due to the simultaneous lack of basic amenities and resources, petty theft, prostitution and drug and alcohol abuse are harsh daily realities.

Children are the worst affected by these conditions. Unfortunately, most kids are not in school and loiter on the streets. Those in school sometimes receive their only meal for the day during the classes’ lunch break, served by the academic institution. Too many have become orphaned and thus live on the streets or, worse, have been taken in by strangers where we have no access to intervene or help. Some also suffer from stray diseases, such as: HIV, cholera, tuberculosis, and other acute chronic diseases like asthma, without the adequate availability of treatment.

According to our Fr. Karanja, a challenge they face is the socio-mentality within Mathare which threatens even the most strong- willed. The project has enabled the community to shift their perspective and believe in change through collaboration. They have been able to offer services such as: children sponsorship, women and men projects, and feeding program for street families Like any slum, crime is a recurrent feature although through the program, it has become less of a problem and now volunteers can walk safely with their bags with minimal risks so long as some attention is paid.

He noted that their impact is becoming noticeable and things are gradually changing as our success stories truly begin to standout within the community.

August 14, 2024

Capacity Building For The Africa Hub

Service Learning Activities

1. SL Postgraduate and Undergraduate Students’ Seminars

The Service Learning Hub held a series of seminars targeting the three schools at Tangaza University College (School of Arts and Social Sciences, School of Education, and School of Theology) with the theme “Empowering students as change agents in connecting knowledge and theory to community practice.” The seminars provided a valuable opportunity for students to explore ways in which they could actively engage in community service and apply their academic knowledge to real-world problems.

The seminars were offered in different intervals; School of Education between January and February 2023, the School of Arts and Social Sciences between March and April 2023, and the School of Theology were to start in May 2023.

The topics covered during the seminars included:

Service Learning – Connection between knowledge (Teaching minds) and making Meaningful Life (Touching Hearts and Transforming Lives).
Practicing Service Learning through areas of specialization. Spiritual aspect of Service Learning for
Service Learning: Nexus between classroom experiences and field

Empowering students as change agents in connecting knowledge and theory to community practices.

2. Service Learning Webinar with the Post Graduate Students

The postgraduate students were not left behind in the Service Learning students’ seminars. In collaboration with the post-graduate studies director and the program leaders service learning webinar was organized for all the postgraduate students on 28th March 2023. The theme for the webinar was “Integrating Service Learning in Postgraduate Studies.” The webinar aimed at creating a positive change through value-based education and Service Learning as well as to focus their research topics to service learning related areas.

The senior students were encouraged to publish in areas of service learning that links theory to practice, which is the current higher education pedagogy in the 21st century.

3. Service Learning Seminar with the Administrators

The administrators within the university also underwent a SL seminar under the theme “Building a culture of Service Learning: Empowering administrators to lead and ” This was to create awareness to the most influential category of leaders in the process of SL institutionalization. The training brought forth the academic administrators from all the schools and the university librarians.