Service Learning Proposal 2

3/15/12 To: Professor Tweed
From: Abigail Ruiz
WST4415 Service Learning Proposal

Mission Statement:

To fight for agricultural justice and improvement of women’s rights in the farm worker community through fundraising and volunteering with YAYA and communication and cooperation with our [to be determined] global partner.

Organizational Structure:

Secretary: record keeping (includes tracking attendance), maintenance of Google group
Scheduler: maintains Google calendar and plans attendance to events
Task-based committees: Headed by a Committee Chairperson who acts as the liaison for the committee and ensures efficiency of meetings
Community partner liaisons (2): communicate with community partners and attend YAYA meetings
Global partner liaisons (2): work with fundraising committee Ethics Committee (3): ensures mindful action, implements “three strike” policy
Three Strike Policy: Failure to complete a task or attend a designated event results in one strike First and second strikes result in voting restrictions Three strikes results in a meeting with the ethics committee and Professor Tweed
Fundraising Organizers (4): responsible for coordinating an event and/or delegating responsibilities to other members to ensure that we are able to provide at least $190 (for food), 19 rakes and 19 shovels to YAYA for the community garden project.

Every member is accountable for his or her own attendance and participation. If a member is unable to attend an event, they must notify the scheduler. The Ethics Committee and “three strike” policy were conceived to deal with situations in which a member fails to be accountable for them.

Our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for, our community. We have chosen this organizational strategy because, based on the NGOs that have come before us, operating through task-based committees (where personal accountability and leadership can foster) promotes efficiency in goal achievement. 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 farmworkers (144).

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. We are facing the global challenge of farmworker rights based on local realities, specifically the lack of resources to farmworkers in the community of Fellsmere, FL. We will be participating in discussion that takes place on a global level with our global partner. By building solidarity between our local and global partners, and ourselves, we will either discover or develop new ideas to cater to the needs of the farmworker population.

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 Profile:

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 neoliberalism and patriarchy" (What Is 1). These systems of oppression often deny those who produce the food basic, 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, farmworkers 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 farmworkers 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.

I feel that this project addresses several of the goals and objectives of the course. For example, it involves a marginalized community that is usually made invisible in our society despite their massive contributions to essential components of our every day lives (what we eat and how this food gets to us). Secondly it helps us see the ways groups and even feminist organizations usually enact ‘volunteer’ work and the problematic assumptions and implications that are a result of them. Like Minh-ha writes “The perception of the outsider as the one who needs help has taken on he successive forms of the barbarian, the pagan, the infidel, the wild man, the “native’ and the underdeveloped” (Minh-ha 54). We see how service based in charity ‘others’ and positions marginalized groups as sole benefactors of our good graces. I believe that through actual human interaction and community building we will see the community as human and not as a subject to be discussed amongst ourselves. Hopefully through this project will we learn to analyze and unpack our assumptions more critically and examine how our western perspective of the world might’s skew how we treat and interact with ‘different’ communities.

Our intentions for this project are to forge 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 ours 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 and 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, while also learning from one another. We will determine the needs of our global partners through email and meet whatever need(s) 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 farmworker 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 may support our fundraising events.

Our most important goal is to support our community partner and their sustainable relationship building with farmworker communities. Our fundraising efforts will provide the Fellsmere community with the tools that they currently need and will use in the future. We will also be providing labor within the Fellsmere community garden and helping with the upkeep 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.

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


Word count: 1512



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.

Minh-ha, Trinh T. “Women Native Other.” Indiana: Indianapolis, 1989. 67. Print

Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis." “Two Years After the Events…”