Education Studies
Winter Term in Service 2009

Project Description
One purpose of this project is to provide its participants with a service learning opportunity within an environment of mutual learning that does not presume a benevolent helping relationship between the 'us' and 'them'. There is always the danger of using 'them' as a resource for 'us' to use, or as the 'needy' for whom things are done. Another objective is to increase their critical awareness of the relationships between poverty and class in postcolonial Brazil. Students will also have opportunity to increase their understanding of the threats to the Brazilian rain forest by 'economic development'. It is hoped that after the experience of this project, students will be more informed not only about Brazil, but about the interrelatedness of human existence. In particular, I hope for a heightened sensitivity to problematic ways in which the American surplus is generated, and the impact of the human and physical environment in distant places.

A primary objective of the service is to facilitate a summer camp experience for the children in what is described as the 'interior' of the countryside of the state. The children have never been outside of Salvador, in fact they rarely venture outside the orphanage, except to attend school and church services. The summer camp curriculum is set as (a) a series of sports tournaments (soccer, running, and other sports) that will involve participants from DPU, the children of Irma Benedita and the children of the village of Rio de Contas (b) a series of environmental awareness activities, that will involve hiking, 'herbal hunts', photography challenges and other outdoor excursions.

COST= $3100