Here is the report for the upcoming event in Cario (Egypt). Service Learning is an integral part of iEARN on line collaborative projects and our students take pride in doing these projects.

Service Learning and Global Youth Service Day:The success stories from Pakistan
A paper submitted by Lydia George, Academic Facilitator
iEARN Centre- Pakistan

“We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave
by doing brave acts. By extension we become compassionate by doing
compassionate acts, caring by doing caring acts and good citizens by acting
as good citizens.” (Conrad as cited by Kinsley and McPherson, 1995)

Introduction:
Service Learning is basically a method of teaching, learning and reflecting that combines academic classroom curriculum with a meaningful community service. As a teaching methodology, it falls under the category of experiential education. In traditional curriculum delivery approaches in Pakistani schools, Community Service and Youth Volunteerism projects and programs are not valued and are generally not integrated in the curriculum. Often if Service Learning projects exist, they are either carried out as co-curricular activities or just a one time event.

iEARN role in connecting Youth:
iEARN being the largest K-12 online educational organization in the world, promotes the use of ICT for connecting young people and educators, promoting awareness and social responsibility. Many iEARN curriculum based online collaborative projects engage students from around the world to carry out these collaborative projects focusing social issues in their immediate and extended communities. iEARN-Pakistan has introduced the concept of Service Learning and Youth Volunteerism as part of the YVS program http://www.iearnpk.org/YVS/index.htm. The program mobilizes young people from iEARN partner school to be proactive in their community issues and respond to the needs by carrying out small and long term projects as part of their course of studies in their schools.
Community service approaches helps the children to be intellectually reflective, productive and ethical citizens. The approaches employed to do Service Learning aims at teaching- learning strategy that involves, engages and empowers young people as workers, resources and entrepreneurs in their schools and communities. Through Service Learning projects, the students are provided an opportunity to focus on integrating content and helping students to demonstrate the knowledge and skills. Research has shown, that opportunities for young people to participate in the life of their school and community help them to develop problem- solving skills, social competence, autonomy and a sense of purpose and future attributes that enables them to bounce back from at-risk environments and lead healthy, productive lives.


iEARN-Pakistan Role in Promoting Service Learning:
Over the years iEARN-Pakistan with the support from several iEARN programs including Building Respect Through Global Education (BRIDGE) and Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) and have managed to engage thousands of youth and their teachers to dialogue, plan and implement Service Learning projects as part of English, Social Studies, Science and other integrated subjects. There are several iEARN Online Collaborative Projects through which iEARN engages students from the GCE countries (countries participating in the Global Connections and Exchange Program) to get an opportunity to be active in their communities. The two projects are of special interest to our students includes the Good Deeds Project and the Students Unlimited Project.
These initiatives have resulted in an improved interest in integrating Service Learning projects in school and recognition of Service Learning as a powerful tool to connect Youth with their communities and cultural identities. Schools and authorities have began to realize the potential of such projects in helping preserve service as a value and to enhance learning opportunities.
iEARN-Pakistan as part of its GCE program, have organized a series on nation wide training program http://www.iearnpk.org/PD/07schedule.htm. A major focus of this program was training the teachers to effectively integrate Service Learning programs in the curriculum to teach as well as introduce and prepare the students for the GYSD activities http://www.iearnpk.org/PD/sl.htm.

iEARN GCE Program and the GYSD:
iEARN Pakistan also mobilizes youth and educators every year to join the global community and other schools in completing Service Learning projects in their respective schools. Youth and teacher all over Pakistan and globe look up to this global event and participate in this global event with full enthusiasm. The objectives it serves according to the Corporation for National and Community Service, USA, (1990) are:
• It promotes learning through active participation in service experiences
• Provides structured time for students to reflect by thinking, discussing and/ or writing about their service experience
• Provides an opportunity for students to use skills and knowledge in real- life situations
• Extends learning beyond the classroom and to the community
• Fosters a sense of caring for others
Retrieved on 19.4.07 from the website http://www.servicelearning.org

Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is a day celebrated in the month of April when the youth groups from around the world work to make themselves informed and active members of their community by engaging in Community Service projects. GYSD is an opportunity to ask the community to come together to go beyond the usual networks and associations, to forge powerful new relationships.

GYSD 2007 in iEARN-Pakistan Member Schools:
This year a number of school teachers were oriented for the GYSD and Service learning. These orientations were done in form of workshops in five (5) cities of Pakistan namely, Karachi, Hyderabad Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, and many other smaller cities. iEARN-Pakistan have developed a teachers manual that contains valuable resources, template and sample unit plans for teachers. During these workshops the teachers were trained in the process of doing Service Learning projects (i.e. doing need analysis, brainstorming on ideas, planning a particular projects, getting community involved, identifying resources for implementation, integration with curriculum, time management and reflection on learning and the process). Participant teachers went back to their respective schools planned the Service and Community Service projects with their students and posted them on the Students Unlimited forum
http://foro.iearn.org/webx?50@219.ybXjaobSnf6.3@.1e4d8515/209 and worked towards implementation of these Service Learning projects. The whole planning and implementation process was facilitated by iEARN Centre during the teacher training in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar and followed online at the iEARN interactive forum.
This paper highlights the process of planning, implementation and the insights developed during the planning and implementation phase by teachers and students.
Fifty eight schools (58) from the different regions of Pakistan representing the province of Sind, Punjab and North West frontier Province participated in the planning phase and posted their plans at the forum. During the training program teachers have developed the school/city wise implementation plan for the GYSD.
This was followed by teachers and students making smaller individual plans for project responding to one or a cluster of social issues in their immediate community using the planning templates from the resource guide. The planning phase followed a set of templates available as attachment at the website
http://foro.iearn.org/webx?50@993.UbMbaVDunVO.3@.1e4d8515/226 The plans posted reflect the teacher’s comprehensive understanding of the Service Learning. The teachers trained the other teachers and students of their respective schools regarding the process of implementation of Service Learning and developed Action plans. The plans showed the involvement of lead teachers and co-teachers, the heads and the other stakeholders. Some of the Social issues addressed by the teachers and students are:
• Recycling of waste material
• Beautifying the surrounding area (planting trees, covering main holes, removing waste)
• Visiting the unprivileged (SOS children village, Nursing homes, hospitals)
• Eradicating poverty
• Educating on different issues (mothers, vendors, adults and children)
• Road Safety
After successful implementation of the Action plans, the GYSD participant teachers, students and schools started sharing the success stories on-line and posted their reports on the forum of “GYSD 2007, Reports from Pakistan”. The reports were based on the following templates:
• The name of the teachers, students participated
• The objective/ rationale of doing the CS project
• The procedure of the project
• The outcomes of the project and
• The key learning features of the teachers and students regarding the whole process (the reflective part)
• The picture gallery related to the project
Altogether twenty-nine (29) different schools again from different regions of Pakistan, teachers and students reported their project reports on the forum “http://foro.iearn.org/webx?14@993.UbMbaVDunVO.293@.1e5622d3/144” out of which thirty- four (34) different projects were successfully implemented.

Some of the quotes from teachers and students who successfully implemented the Service Learning projects are mentioned below:
“It was a satisfying experience through which we had a lot of practical knowledge as to how to organize and channelize the youth of the country for community service.” (Riffat Nawaz, Naheed Malik, teachers of Fauji Foundation College for Girls, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

“We are feeling great happiness and satisfaction at this noble deed. People appreciated the students greatly when they were doing this work.” (Ahmed, Hamza, Mehak, students of FFMS New lalazar Campus, Rwp, Pakistan)

“This is the time for us to bring our youth in action. The Students are participating actively and enjoying the work.” (Tabassum Hemani, teacher at Fatimiyah Education Network)

“The staff and the students were all participating actively in the process of keeping the environment clean and also helped in creating the surrounding clean and free from any pollution.” (Ms. Nazia Kaka Khel, a teacher from The City School Town Junior Branch Peshawar)


“We made an attempt to polish our hidden talent. We learned how one can become a volunteer.
We learnt how to co-operate with others to complete a plan. As this was a team work so we
experienced new things.”(Naeem Asif - Group leader and Aamish Raza _ Assistant group
leader of the project from Fauji Foundation College for boys, New Lalazar, Rawalpindi)

The outcomes of the projects:

During the process of implementing Service Learning projects, students learnt different skills and went through different experiences. Some of the outcomes which were result of these experiences are shared below:

“Students got practical experience about what they had learnt as part of school curriculum. People realized the importance of cleanliness. Public awareness was created through a talk.”
(Riffat Nawaz, Naheed Malik, Fauji Foundation College for Girls, Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

“Creating awareness in our students regarding keeping the environment clean was a great experience. Speech competition helped the students build their confidence. The writing competition helped the students in creative writing about the given topic. The plantation activity helped the students to keep our environment clean, walk against the global warning and also the pollution free environment. The morning presentation as well as the title song we are the world helped the students participate actively and enhance their abilities.” (Ms. Nazia Kaka Khel ,The City School Town Junior Branch Peshawar)

“We took part in this activity more enthusiastically. This activity also provided us a chance to do something for public welfare. By overcoming the difficulties faced during this project, we gained confidence and in our practical life we will not hesitate to work for public welfare.”
(Naeem Asif - Group leader. Aamish Raza -Assistant group leader and Umar Quddusi -Assistant group leader from Fauji Foundation College for boys, New Lalazar Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

“We gained a lot of confidence and exposure. We realized that when we are together we can work as a force and can bring about great changes at community level. We should not always put the responsibility on government for providing us different services. If we mobilize our resources, we can help ourselves.” ( Fizza Bashir, Rehma Ahemad, Wajeeha Amjad, Saqiba Gulzar and associates of Fauji Foundation College for girls, New Lalazar, Rawalpindi, Pakistan)

Through the successful completion of the Service Learning projects, iEARN- Pakistan was able to connect cultures and bind communities together. It also brought the communities and cultures around the globe together via the iEARN GYSD platform as participants and teachers interacted and commented each other on their planning and reports. A substantial effort was done by the Pakistani participants for the development and sustainability of education and serving community in the country.



References:
Author Unknown. (1990). The National and Community Service Act. Retrieved on
19.4.07 from the website http://www.servicelearning.org.

Kinsley, C. W and McPherson, K. (1995). Enriching the curriculum through Service
Learning. Virginia: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

www.iearpk.org