WST4415 Service Learning Project Revamped!

Date: 3/15/12

To: Professor Tweed

From: Samantha Daley

Re: WST 4415 Service Learning Proposal

Mission Statement:

To engage in local-to-global activism by supporting sustainable relationship-building alongside members of the farm working community through working in solidarity with the Youth and Young Adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry (YAYA) and (whoever our global partner is). Through communication and cooperation we will strive to work with our community partners towards the shared aim helping the community help themselves. Furthermore, we intend to make connections from the local farm worker community to the global food sustainability movement.
To access our goal the ethics committee has set up viable concrete victories in the proposal. This will allow us to determine when we have created a sustainable relationship with the farm workers and our global partner.

Organizational Structure:

Our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for our community. Women, Food, and Agriculture Network (WFAN), as discussed in Women’s Activism and Globalization, have a similar mission. One of their goals is to “instigate change” by building community and sustaining relationships with the farm workers (144). To achieve sustainable relationships we have to work within our community. In the spirit of feminist NGOs that have come before us, we endeavor to work as professionals within a committed network of organizers, activists, and farm workers to prioritize communal involvement and service. We have divided into task-based committees. There will be supervision of the other committee members to combat potential negligence. We also have an ethics committee to monitor our progress. In “Unlikely Godmother,” Margaret Snyder characterizes the United Nations as a “godmother,” which acted as a guardian and advocate for women’s issues (25). Our ethics committee is cognate to the UN, in that it will monitor the efficacy and ethical compliance of our project.

Task-based committees

Committee Chairperson: Liaison for committee

• Rotating facilitator
• Ensure meetings run efficiently
• Hold meetings with Committee Chairpersons

Community partner liaisons (2)

• Communicate with community partners
• Attend YAYA meetings

Global partner liaisons (2)

• Work with fundraising committee

Secretary

• Record keeping
• Maintenance of Google group
• Recording attendance
• Report truancy

Ethics Committee (3)

• Ensure mindful action
• Oversee three strike policy
• Failure to complete task or attend a designated event results in one strike
• First and second strikes result in voting restrictions
• Three strikes result in a meeting with the Ethics Committee and Professor Tweed to discuss the member’s role and future participation in the project

Scheduler

• Maintains Google calendar
• Ensures consistent event attendance

Fundraising Organizers (4)

• $10 per person/$190 total (for food)
• 19 rakes and 19 shovels (One rake and one shovel per group member)

Our local issue relates to the lack of resources and tools available to migrant farm workers. We will take steps toward providing resources and tools for them by working with YAYA on a community garden project, garden tool collection, and a long-sleeve t-shirt drive.

Every member is accountable for their own attendance and participation. If the member is unable to attend an event they must notify the group to keep order. In the situation where a member is not being accountable for themselves we have developed an Ethics Committee.

Group effectiveness will be measured by involvement of the majority of class members at each event, as well as our ability to fulfill each of the goals we have set.  We are also considering the individual gains of each class member, outside of the group as a whole, to be an accomplishment of overall group effectiveness. This includes phone banking with YAYA, fundraising, and planning.  We will also strive to maintain sincere communication and ethical interactions with each other and our community partners. We will assess ourselves via individual surveys on group effectiveness.

Community Partner/Global Theme:

We propose to address the larger systemic issues of the treatment and unfair conditions of farm workers, focusing specifically on women farm workers. We know that "women produce 70% of the food on earth but they are marginalized and oppressed by neoliberals and patriarchy" (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny those who produce the food basic and equal access to the products they produce. As the price of food increases and becomes scarcer, women become malnourished, "as they eat last after providing for their children and family members" (Desai 21). One possible way of addressing this issue is to "produce food for local consumption" (Desai 24). To lay a foundation for both environmental and production sustainability, it is key that the community eats the food it grows. Local production and consumption can also indirectly address situations of "unsustainable exploitation of workers," who are denied not only equal access to food but also other resources, such as safe housing and acceptable working conditions (Two Years 1). By establishing themselves as producers of their own food and giving value and recognition to both the unpaid and poorly paid labor, farm workers can pave the way for change in regard to equal access and fair treatment.

We have not yet been able to contact a global partner, however when we do we will be able to find out more about their needs and goals as they relate to our own and therefore participate in both shared learning and activism.

By working in solidarity with YAYA, we are supporting activism enacted “to change the oppressive social, political and economic conditions of farm workers” (“About”). Human rights violations, such as those our local farm workers face, are worldwide issues and are experienced in many forms across many communities. While YAYA is “[I]nspired by the principles of nonviolence of the farm worker movement,” we are inspired by the efforts of YAYA and the organization’s slant towards working with, not simply for farm worker communities (“About”). As we work with each other and with YAYA, we will cultivate ethical activism through focusing on our communicative and social interactions

Our project, volunteering at the community garden enables us (as service learning students) to create a relationship with the farm workers of our community. I believe that this project relates to the goals and objectives of the course by providing us with a clear insight into a global issue for women that is right in our back yard. This exposure and experience will enable us to see what we’ve been reading about, and check our own privilege so that we can gain a strong relationship and work with a community that’s already making strides to improve their working and living conditions. The objectives of our class include understanding how women come together and negotiate discourses on a global and local level (Ferree 38), and I feel that through helping with the community garden will gain just that, understanding.

We will be learning and gaining understanding from individuals that are in community, and forming sustainable relationships that will continue and hopefully grow as time goes by into a strong relationship with individuals with rich backgrounds and important stories that need to be heard. The point of the creation of the community garden was to have a place where members of the farm worker community could come to interact and a place where they can gain pesticide free food. Through this project we are learning and growing, and checking our privilege at the door (Minh-ha 65).

Project Proposal

Our intentions for this project are to maintain relationships with farm worker communities on a local to global level, with a focus on women and how their lives are impacted by the work they do. We will accomplish our goals by dividing them up between the various committees we have created. We will begin to develop a relationship with our local community partner, YAYA, by attending meetings, fulfilling their requested needs for gardening tools and long sleeve shirts. We will also be participating in the Fellsmere Community Garden Event, where we will be gardening, sharing and preparing a meal and learning from one another. We will determine the needs of our global partners through email and meet whatever need(s) that they express at that time.

We will complete our service learning project via the combined resources of each of us as individuals, the resources we have available as UCF students and the resources of our greater Orlando community. Through the expertise of YAYA and FWAF we will be able to better understand the ways in which we can use our resources to best serve the needs of the farm worker community. Simultaneously, we will be continuously communicating as a group in order to reevaluate (and therefore possibly alter) our initial methodology, resources and group organizational structure in order to best serve our goals.

One of our immediate goals in supporting YAYA and FWAF in the Fellsmere community gardening day is to fundraise one shovel and one rake per student. Another goal is to fundraise the cost per person for our visit, which includes meals and transportation. We believe that these immediate goals are feasible because we have access to different types of resources that will help our fundraising efforts. For example, on-campus technology to make and print materials to advertise fundraising as well as access to various campus organizations that can support our fundraising events. Our most important goal is to support our community partner and their sustainable relationship building with farm worker communities. Our fundraising efforts will provide the Fellsmere community with the tools they are currently in need of and will use in the future. We will also be providing labor within the Fellsmere community garden and helping with the up keep of the plots, a service that FWAF has asked YAYA and our Global class to provide. We hope that through this project we help YAYA strengthen their already established relationship with the Fellsmere community, and that through our collaborative efforts; we also create a sustainable relationship with our community partner.

Word Count:1550

 Project Timeline:

1. February 22: Initial contact with Lariza Garzon of YAYA to confirm partnership
2. February 24: Contact Global Partner 
3. March 1: In-class presentation by YAYA
1. The historical events that have led to the current oppressive conditions of the agricultural industry
2. Solidarity (sustainable relationship), privilege, power dynamics, etc.
3. March 10: Fundraising Event
4. March 17: Fundraising Event 
5. March 31: Participate in YAYA’s Community Garden Project
1. 8 am Depart Orlando from NFWM office
2. 10 am Arrive To Fellsmere
3. 10:15 am Welcome, introductions and instructions
4. 10:45 am Gardening begins!
5. 1:00 pm Lunch (vegetarian options available)/ short soccer game
6.  2:00 pm back to gardening!
7. 4:30 pm Debrief
8. 5:15 pm Dinner
9. 6:00 pm Depart Fellsmere
10. 8:00 pm Arrive to Orlando at NFWM Office
11. Date TBD: Debriefing meeting

Works Cited

Desai, Manisha. "Transnational Solidarity: Women's Agency, Structural Adjustment, and Globalization." Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 15-33. Print.

 Ferree, Mayra M. “Global Feminism” Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. New York: London, 2006. 40-41. Print

Minh-ha, Trinh T. “Women Native Other.” Indiana: Indianapolis, 1989. 47-65. Print

Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis." Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics. By Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 267-81. Print.

“Two Years after the Events…” La Via Campesina: International Peasant’s Movement. La Via Campesina International Peasant’s Voice. 12 January 2012. Web. 23 February 2012.

“What is La Via Campesina?” La Via Campesina: International Peasant’s Movement. La Via Campesina International Peasant’s Voice. 9 February 2011. Web. 23 February 2012.