Service Trips – The Enchanting Challenge

Yesterday’s call to service was answered in one of the most inspiring acts of collective altruism our country has witnessed–literally hundreds of thousands of Americans devoted their day to service, including our President himself !  While President Obama spent the day visiting injured soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital and painting the walls of a homeless teen’s shelter in our nation’s capital, others across the country flocked to soup kitchens, performed medical and dental services free of charge, and coordinated donation drives.  According to the Washington Post, this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day witnessed 12,100 service events nation-wide, over twice seen on the same holiday last year (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/19/AR2009011902999.html).  What a way to start this new chapter.

Today, officially, the new chapter has begun, a chapter that is asking us all to serve in whatever way we can.  There are many issues facing our nation and our world at this crux in time, and we as a country need to mobilize ourselves in order to put the world back together again.  What is so beautiful is that we seem inspired to take on that challenge.  So let us begin. 

All of this talk about service reminds me of one of my greatest role models: Laura Eppinger.  I met Laura during college at Marquette University.  Laura was an idealistic journalism major who was always volunteering and coordinating service activities wherever and whenever she could.  During her junior year, she decided to study abroad in Cape Town, South Africa, in large part because that specific program included 14 hours of service work a week.  Laura went and spent four months working in an orphanage for children who had lost their parents to tuberculosis or AIDS.  Many of these children were themselves afflicted with TB and/or HIV/AIDS.  Needless to say, she came back a different person.  She had always been devoted to service, but upon her return to Marquette, she made it the center of her student life.  Soon after arriving back at campus, Laurabegan a 20 hour a week job at the Student Service Learning Office (a heavy task to handle, especially as she was allready studying her way through an overly-ambitious credit load and working as an editor for the student newspaper).  During her year at the Service Learning Office, Laura strengthened already-existing service learning programs and also worked to create new programs between Marquette University and Milwaukee County organizations and nonprofits.  When she graduated after that year, she left the Service Learning Office enriched and inspired by her work and passion.

But Laura did not stop there.  Upon graduation, she applied for and was offered a job with AmeriCorps to work as a Service Learning Coordinator for Ripon College in Ripon, Wisconsin.   Since July, she has been working tirelessly to mobilize the Ripon College student body and get everyone serving.  And that she does!  

In a way, all the service work that Laura now does for her career really began with her service trip to South Africa.  Below is a reflection she has written on this experience, and I think it is a beautiful piece to draw inspiration from as we embark upon a new mission in our country’s story, a mission to serve.

Cape Town Service Learning

by Laura Eppinger

In fall 2006, during the first semester of my junior year, I participated in Marquette University’s Cape Town Service-Learning Study Abroad Program. (More information can be found here: http://www.marquette.edu/safrica/about.shtml)

I was drawn to this program because of its uniqueness—it was Marquette’s only study abroad opportunity on the African continent, and there was a service-learning component. Our group of 12 Marquette students was enrolled at the University of the Western Cape and able to select two courses of our choosing. Another two were required, Theology of Reconciliation, Justice and Peace and Leadership in Grassroots Development. Through the Leadership course, my fellow students and I were placed at a nonprofit agencies for regular service (14 hours a week). We were encouraged to bring our experiences in the field of nonprofits into the Leadership course; these experiences were also valued in the Theology class.

My service-learning site was a children’s home for those orphaned by AIDS or tuberculosis, which was located in a township outside of Cape Town proper. I divided my time between on-site visits that included anything from cooking and cleaning to taking half a dozen children to a the local clinic for HIV and TB tests, and fund-raising or creating public relations material for the children’s home.

This service-learning placement shaped my time abroad, and my worldview thereafter, in many different ways, but one I would like to touch on is the visible tie between social injustice and physical isolation.

It has been only 15 years since apartheid rule was overturned in South Africa. The effects of this “separateness” are still real and lived. During apartheid, the government zoned different areas for different racial categories of the population (See: http://tinyurl.com/97wkv5). Commerce centers and developed areas with easy access to public transportation were generally zoned for White South Africans. Black and Coloured (mixed race) people were often forcefully removed from otherwise mixed neighborhoods and relegated to newly constructed government housing (which often lacked electricity and running water), or forced to build shantytowns. (For more about forced removals, see: http://www.districtsix.co.za/)

The reality was very similar, though not the law of the land, when I studied in Cape Town in 2006. The University of the Western Cape, where I studied, was a Coloured school during apartheid. It is still predominantly Coloured, and its students come from largely Coloured neighborhoods. The township I volunteered in is almost 100% Black or indigenous African. But the these populations share more than a so-called racial classification—statistics like average income level, high school graduation rates, rate of HIV infection, and crime rates are tied to a person’s race and, therefore, neighborhood. Simply put: Black or indigenous African people are at the greatest risk of contracting HIV in South Africa, and continue to live in neighborhoods with low graduation rates, low income rates, and high crime rates (http://www.avert.org/aidssouthafrica.htm; http://www.tc.columbia.edu/cICE/archives/3.1/31sachs.pdf).

But Cape Town tourism is booming; with nature reserves, Table Mountain, bars and clubs on Long Street, and all the beautiful beaches, I know I could have easily enjoyed South Africa and glossed over the social injustices that have lingered from and evolved since apartheid. But every week I traveled to grossly different neighborhoods in Cape Town and interacted with different segments of the population. It was often exhausting, unsettling and confusing to spend a seven-hour day at an HIV/TB orphanage and then return to our study abroad group’s house in a hip college town called Observatory, then attend university with a somewhat middle class population the next day.

But my jarring and disjointed experiences reflect the geography and society of South Africa and the nation’s history of oppression. I am convinced I could not have gained these insights without time spent at the service site, framed within an academic course.

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Those are the words of Laura and her service…They inspire me everyday, and I am so happy to share them with you!  Stories like these show how the doors of service bring out parts of yourself that you never knew existed, and parts of the world that wouldn’t exist without your help.