International conference in Buenos Aires: New impulses for strengthening service learning

The project coordinator for service learning at the KU, Christiane Hoth de Olano, and Dr. Ulrike Brok, employee at the KU Department of Education Innovation, represented the KU at the one-week conference in the Argentinian capital. The Center for Solidary Service Learning (CLAYSS), which is based in Buenos Aires, had invited international representatives of the service learning hubs to exchange views on project Uniservitate’s achievements to date and to develop perspectives for the years to come. The Uniservitate project that is funded by the Porticus foundation has the aim of systematically anchoring service learning offers at universities. Service learning describes educational offers that link civic engagement with subject-specific learning.

Being a “committed University” in the field, the KU wants to focus on “learning by involvement” and make it one of its core pillars. For two years now, the KU has been the responsible coordinating institution for the regional hub for Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Alongside the KU, this regional network includes the Catholic universities in Lviv (Ukraine), Lublin (Poland) and Bethlehem. All four Catholic universities of the hub attended the conference in Buenos Aires. At the conference, members of this regional hub had the chance to exchange ideas among each other, but also to make contact with representatives of other hubs. Participants discussed the conditions and requirements of service learning in the different regions and set new impulses for the future.