Varese (Italy). Service Learning is a pedagogical method that considers community service and learning together, because school has to do with life and life has to do with school.
The students of Social Economic High School, Year 2 (LES) of Maria Help of Christians School of Varese, in the Lombardy Province of the Holy Family (ILO) together with their teachers, in December 2019 started to make an analysis of the problems, the deficiencies, the desires of their school and of the territory, to implement a concrete response starting from school disciplines.
Covid-19 has modified needs, fatigue, places of fragility, and for this reason a new analysis of the current situation was necessary, also through the administration of a questionnaire prepared with the Professor of Human Sciences. This new analysis highlighted how needs are now the need to lower the threshold of fear, the more severe application of the rules, the suffering of the elderly who are at home alone.
To respond to the difficulties of not being able to leave home, the students thought about launching messages through the Social Media, messages of hope, of persuasion to respect the given indications, and the invitation to be careful to the grandparents and elderly people through telephone calls.
From the skills and passions of some of them, the idea was also born to propose alternative activities through video tutorials to commit time and reduce the anxiety that comes from being in front of the television all the time listening to the news. The contents being developed are varied: how to prepare some dishes, take care of pets, clean the house, learn to study, learn to make scout knots, learn choreography. In addition, brief times of listening to music played with instruments, and proposals for reading texts such as The Betrothed by A. Manzoni, and Boccaccio’s Decameron will be offered.
The social media on which all this is or will be published, under the profile name teens during corona, are: Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Tik tok, and Facebook. Primary school children were involved in Pinterest by making drawings to be published.
Parabéns, Escola Maria Auxiliadora de Varese da Província da Sagrada Família da Lombardia (OIT) pela iniciativa nos canais sociais como um serviço à comunidade. Jovens protagonistas, bons cidadãos e bons cristãos!