Service-Learning or AIDS Walk - Essay Example

? Service learning or AIDS Walk Service learning involves community outreach programs like AIDS Walks, service to the elderly, children and youth services, environmental organizations, underprivileged families and outreach to the homeless among others. Service learning combines formal class instructions with related community service (seifer 1988). This helps students improve their memorable, educational experience and their provision of valuable service to the related community. The AIDS WALK was full of experience in both service and learning. The community received students with a perspective of professionals who had a purpose. Young and old, youth and elderly, the community members, enjoyed seeing the students walk from one corner to another attending to the sick, advising, teaching and activating for a better health in the society. To the students, they had a chance to explore the community needs and wants, apply the class work to practical service to the community and employ their skills in service delivery. The participants arrived at the starting point on time and were issued with T-shirts with the writings, “AIDS is Real” and “Anyone can be a victim”. The T-shirts were issued to all the people who had already bought their tickets to participate in the walk. We all were required to pay $ 20 per person to acquire the ticket. It seemed that people had bought the tickets in plenty since the walk attracted more than two thousand people. Everyone seemed jovial to participate in the walk. This walk was aimed at sensitizing the public about AIDS and raise money to assist AIDS victims. The walk started at 10 am and lasted for four hours. We all walked through the city streets in unison and felt as though we were a community. The walk organizers provided all the participants with bottled water and energy drinks, in the course of the walk. This walk had incorporated nearly all the celebrities and other public figures. As we all walked and ran through the city, the national army band thrilled all passersby and the participants. The band played lovely songs that motivated people to continue walking. At the end of the walk, we all converged at the City Hall grounds where the partners and facilitators took us through ways on how we should treat AIDS victims and how we should relate to them. At the start of the AIDS Walk, the participants had formed opinions about the service, partners and personal abilities. Most of the participants thought that the service targeted a specific ethnic group and that it was a disease for gay people. Needless to say, other participants had a mistaken assumption that the partners should help reduce the prevalence of AIDS through the use of drugs alone. The participants also had the misconception that people should not interact with AIDS victims. This makes AIDS victims feel alienated from the society making it extremely difficult for them to open up and share AIDS opinions with the public. Moreover, the participants underestimated their abilities before the start of the walk. Walking 10 kilometers seemed impossible to many of the participants, but they were all surprised. In addition, most of the participants believed that they lacked personal attributes of relating well with AIDS victims. After the walk, all the assumptions held by the participants were proved wrong. Notably, we all gained personal skills on how to treat and relate with AIDS victims. In essence, the students who engage in service learning gain the practical skills and their contexts to provide back to the community the learned skills as services in response to any identified community concerns. The aim of Service learning is to attain equilibrium between service and goals of learning (seifer 1988). This objective fosters critical thinking and ensures there is a connection between theory and experience or practice. The facilitators and the partners noted that AIDS was not a disease for a particular ethnic group and that anyone can be a victim. They cleared the air by indicating that anyone is vulnerable. The assumptions held by many of the participants about the partner’s scope were also cleared. The walk emphasized that dependence on drugs to prevent AIDS could result to worse effects if the people at risk do not apprehend how their conduct affects treatment. Through the walk, the participants were sensitized on AIDS transmission and interaction with AIDS victims was not one of the ways of contracting the disease. The nursing core values of reverence, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship are imperative aspects in Nursing and to nursing students. In reference to Seifer (1988), they assist individuals in achieving their objectives or service learning that is both learning and community service. Reverence holds the sacred worth and dignity of a person, celebrating the relationship of brotherhood or sisterhood and creating a welcoming, compassionate and reconciling community. With this value, students are able to mix with every gender of the community (seifer 1988). Reverence promotes respect between individuals, between the student and the party involved. Integrity is honesty, truthfulness, and accuracy of a person’s actions. It is consistency in values, actions and principles among others. In nursing, integrity promotes truth and love, fairness and honesty and taking responsibility for one's actions. According to Seifer (1988), integrity upholds the spirit of consistency and honesty. Needless to say, integrity promotes honesty in attitude, experience, actions, and consistency in better performance for achieving the objectives of the project. Integrity encourages the community to develop trust and positive belief on a student’s abilities and it encourages reverence. Nursing is about health care and health care is about trust in one’s ability and building a complete picture to the society. Service to all is a core value in nursing that encourages a positive attitude to the profession. Nurses serve with humility, love and compassion challenging the unjust work and structures in their working environment (seifer 1988). To nurses, service is part of their life in every minute and second. Excellence is a prerequisite for every health concern. Nurses should perform their responsibilities to the best of their ability with cooperation rather than competition. The quest for excellence is the basis of the service learning. Seifer (1988) notes that a community only gains trust when the service provision is to the best of one’s ability and especially when the matter at hand is about health. Stewardship is a fundamental core value of the nursing profession. To be a steward is to lead from example and uphold responsibility in ones action. Respect to everything that one comes across; environment, health, economics, information, religion and property among others. Health is indispensable; it is a sacred gift from God. Nurses are stewards of life and health as they embrace life and care for it, and they receive the resource embodied on them for health care and use them carefully and generously for peace and justice. Stewardship encourages a strong relation, a commitment and an ideology of care for everyone. The walk integrated all the core values of nursing. Reverence was shown by how the participants interacted with themselves and the community. They all respected each other and worked together as a team to ensure the walk was successful. Integrity was shown by how the participants honestly described their assumptions and perceptions at the beginning of the walk. This helped create trust among the participants and the community. Notably, the dedication and service provided by the participants portrayed service to all and excellence. Finally, their service and dedication signified stewardship. Throughout the service learning, it is imperative for students to adopt, uphold and stick to the core values of nursing. This is because it not only increases a student’s experience and professionalism but also act as a basis of action, behavior and performance. In this regard, carrying out a service learning activity is crucial for nursing students. It gives the students immediate opportunity of practicing class work in the community while learning on how to handle certain outcomes of a health worker’s action. Arguably, Seifer (1988) notes that service learning improves skills because it is an all round learning for both the instructor and the student and instills social responsibility in the student. References Seifer SD. (1998). Service-learning: Community-campus partnerships for health professions education. Academic Medicine, 73(3):273-277. Read More