Date:3/15/2012
To: Professor Tweed
From: Ashleigh Augustine
RE: Service Learning Proposal
Mission Statement: To fight for agricultural justice and women’s rights in the farmworker community through fundraising and volunteering with YAYA and communication and cooperation with our forthcoming 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 delegating responsibilities to other members to ensure that we 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 themselves.
Our group is democratically structured and focuses on working with, rather than for, our community. We have modeled our organizational strategy based on NGOs operating through task-based committees where personal accountability and leadership can foster efficient 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 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 of farmworkers, with an emphasis on women farmworkers. 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 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 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 farmworkers” (“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 farmworker movement,” we are inspired by the efforts of YAYA and the organization’s slant towards working with, not simply for farmworker communities (“About”). As we work with each other and with YAYA, we will cultivate ethical activism through focusing on our communicative and social interactions.
This project is allowing us to get firsthand experience on how “women theorize and act on local and global levels, taking global and national politics into consideration (Tweed 1). This service learning is different from other service learning projects because it is requiring us to consider both the local and global effects of our project. It is also requiring us as a group to be aware of our privilege and set them aside in order to learn from this community and one another. When we began this project our group assumed a lot about the needs of the Fellsmere community. Through class reading and discussion we became aware of our assumptions. We have now redirected our thinking to how can we work with this community and learn from each other rather than what we can do for them. Trinh Minh-ha states “ a conversation of “us” with “us” about “them” is a conversation in which “them” is silenced”(67). I think if we maintain open communication and focus on learning and sharing experiences with the community we all can benefit greatly. There are so many great stories to be heard. In addition to hearing the stories and experiences from the member of the Fellsmere community we will also be learning about our fellow group member’s stories and experiences.
3. The Project Proposal:
Our intention for this project is to forge relationships with farmworker 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 aforementioned committees. We will begin developing 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 and 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) that they express at that time.
We will complete our service-learning project via our combined resources as individuals, the resources we have available as UCF students, and the resources of our 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. We will be communicating as a group in order to continuously reevaluate 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. These goals are feasible because we have access to different types of resources that will help our fundraising efforts, such as on-campus technology to create fundraiser advertisements, 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. Through this project, we hope to help YAYA strengthen their established relationship with the Fellsmere community, and that through our collaborative efforts, we will create a sustainable relationship with our community partner.
Project Timeline:
· February 22: Initial contact with Lariza Garzon of YAYA to confirm partnership
· February 24: Contact Global Partner
· March 1: In-class presentation by YAYA
o The historical events that have led to the current oppressive conditions of the agricultural
industry
o Solidarity (sustainable relationship), privilege, power dynamics, etc.
· March 10: Fundraising Event
· March 17: Fundraising Event
· March 31: Participate in YAYA’s Community Garden Project8 am Depart Orlando from NFWM office
o 10 am Arrive To Fellsmere
o 10:15 am Welcome, introductions and instructions
o 10:45 am Gardening begins!
o 1:00 pm Lunch (vegetarian options available)/ short soccer game
o 2:00 pm Back to gardening!
o 4:30 pm Debrief
o 5:15 pm Dinner
o 6:00 pm Depart Fellsmere
o 8:00 pm Arrive to Orlando at NFWM Office
· Date TBD: Debriefing meeting
Word Count 1607
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.
Naples, Nancy A. "The Challenges and Possibilities of Transnational Feminist Praxis." Women's
Activism and Globalization: Linking Local Struggles and Transnational Politics.
Nancy A. Naples and Manisha Desai. New York: Routledge, 2002. 267-81. Print
Trinh, T. Minh-Ha. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Bloomington:
Indiana UP, 1989. 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.
