Service Learning Reflection Paper: GIFT - Essay Example

The service-learning project, its location, and the dates My service-learning project involved awareness creation on self-care. The project assumed an educator role of nursing and focused on the community’s potential to prevent and manage diseases and infections. Orem’s theory of self care, with the core assumption that people should be self reliant and be in charge of care provision to themselves and to people around them, formed the basis of the project. The theory also states that an individual’s awareness of possible threats to health is important to behavioral change towards self-reliant care (Santarosa, n.d). The project assumed an educator role in which I taught members of the Kapiolani Community college Farmers’ Market Gift the significance of background knowledge on diseases and available control measures for prevention and control.

With focus on chronic diseases such as cardiovascular complications, I taught the members the role of stress, eating habits, and exercise on preventing the complications and managing symptoms among patients. The education role also involved creating awareness of the diseases’ symptoms (Utley, 2010; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). The service-learning project was conducted at Kapiolani Community College Farmer’s Market GIFT. I dedicated three Saturdays for the project in order to complete the minimum requirement of a 10-hour service to the community.

The three sessions were four hours from 7:30 am to 11:30 am on September 21, four hours from 7:30 am to 11:30 am on Saturday of September 28, and two hours from 8:00 am to 10:00 am on Saturday 5 October. Connection between the people and myself I served The scope of the project identified different types of connections. The first connection between the people I served and me is the teacher-learner relationship. This is because I facilitated learning that empowered the community to identify some of the chronic diseases, their causes, and possible management strategies.

Leadership also offered a connection between the community and me because I influenced the audience through the facilitator role that I assumed during the learning process. Members of the community also looked up to me as an expert in health issues and sought my counsel over their health care concern. The people also identified my position as a nurse and this established a nurse-patient connection as I helped people to develop strategies for identifying possible existence of diseases and measures for preventing and managing the diseases.

Ways in which core values of the Chaminade University of Hawaii’s school of nursing play a role in my service to others Two core values of Chaminade University motivated my role in service delivery to others during the community service. The institution’s holistic value that commits to caring for people influenced me to a high level of dedication to community based healthcare. I explored alternatives to contributing to other people’s welfare and realized the need inform members of the community of prevention and management strategies against terminal diseases whose burden has been increasing.

The institution’s commitment to excellent nursing practices has also motivated me through establishing my vision for a healthy society and influenced my desire to empower other people through