Imagine your life shattered by the loss of all your material possessions, your job, and your community. And then you are dropped down in a strange city to start over. How would you pick up the pieces of your life and begin putting them back together?
The evacuees from Hurricane Katrina who ended up in Athens have been aided in starting over by a service-learning project that paired UGA social work students with families who fled the hurricane.
The Hurricane Katrina Project, a joint venture between the School of Social Work and Community Connection of Northeast Georgia, has been a way for evacuees to connect with resources, services, and jobs in Athens.
Brandon Cawthon, an MSW student, volunteered to interview families as part of a needs assessment for evacuees at the start of the Hurricane Katrina Project in the fall of 2005 and then became the primary contact for one of those same families, a mother with four children.
One of the issues that Cawthon helped his client with was finding tutoring for one of her children. “Her kids are one of her main concerns,” he said. “She talked about how one of her sons needed a tutor because he was having trouble in biology, and she said they couldn’t afford to pay someone to tutor him. So I mailed her information about tutoring programs in Athens. She said it turned out well. And the program is free.”
Cawthon and the other 26 social work graduate students who take part in the project checked in with their Katrina families every week or so during spring semester. Donna Bliss, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work, helped set up the guidelines for the project. “The whole idea,” she said, “is to help people help themselves and become integrated in their new community using social work students to facilitate that process.”
Bliss, who is one of five service-learning fellows at UGA, said students volunteered to take part in this project and will write about it as a replacement for one of their assignments in her cultural diversity class. “Service-learning addresses a need in the community, but also addresses academics,” she said. “Service and learning are equal and having students reflect on the experience is a critical part of service-learning.”
Kelly Hanofee, an MSW student involved in the project, said, “I feel really fortunate that Dr. Bliss realized that this was something our school should be involved in. Not only are we working with the evacuees to get them engaged in our community, but we are learning about a different regional group and sometimes a different racial group, so it fits well with the cultural diversity class.”
Julie Meehan, the executive director of Community Connection, said of the Hurricane Katrina Project, “It would have been impossible for us to provide the level and depth of ongoing service to these families had it not been for our partnership with the School of Social Work.”
Competing
in a Global Economy
The University of Georgia is at the forefront of the globalization
movement in higher education with a wealth of opportunities for
international experiences. Our students are flocking to study-abroad
programs, thriving on the challenges inherent in confronting a
new cultural environment. More and more, students on campus are
also making choices that reflect an understanding of the importance
of global awareness—from living in a residence hall-based
language community to starting a radio program in another language
to minoring in a foreign language. These experiences, whether at
home or abroad, influence how our students perceive the world and
their place in it. We’re producing graduates prepared to
be world citizens—well informed, culturally sensitive and
technologically sophisticated. They’re ready to take on the
challenges of our global society, and they’ll be equally
at home whether in the Peach State or the Republic of Georgia. |
