Service Learning Proposal

Service Learning Proposal for YAYA NFWM
By: Abigail Ruiz
February 14, 2012
Meredith Tweed
WST 3371

Community Partner Profile:
Community Partner: Youth and Young Adult National Farm Worker Ministry
Address: 4420 Parkway Commerce Blvd, Suite A, Orlando, Florida, 32808, United States
Contact: Nicole Godreau-President 407.739.0973
Community Partner Mission Statement: “YAYA is the Youth & Young Adult Network of the National Farm Worker Ministry, a national network of young people actively working to change the oppressive social, political and economic conditions of farm workers. Inspired by the principles of nonviolence of the farm worker movement, YAYAs support a variety of national and local campaigns led by farm workers. These campaigns seek to improve the oppressive conditions faced by the workers who harvest our food.” (YAYA NFWM)
http://nfwm-yaya.org/about/
Political / Social Biases: YAYA is part of the National Farm Worker Ministry that was founded in 1920 and is a religious organization. It emphasizes people of faith to work with the Farm Worker community and turn their efforts from ‘charity’ to ‘justice’. Although YAY NFWM is a religious organization, members of YAYA do not have to identify with any faith and anyone can join in the cause of promoting Farm Worker justice.
YAYA NFWM supports Farm Worker communities and their political needs. YAYA is frequently promoting petitions and forming rallies in support of laws that better living and working conditions of the undocumented worker and their families. Because YAYA supports the non-violent farm worker movement, this organization forms vigils, picketing, and coordinates boycotts.
General Needs Community Partner: The Orlando YAYA chapter is in need of more volunteers to carry out campaigns in the Florida communities. They are also in need for donations for their various community projects. (Clothes, Money, Canned Foods ect.) Since YAYA works around the needs of the farm worker community, their needs change according to what the farm worker communities need.

The Proposal:

Fellsmere Community Women in Need for Gardens in their Home
YAYA has been actively working with the Fellsmere Farm Worker community over the years. This community has recently been granted four plots in which they have created an organic community garden where they can grow their own produce, free from pesticides. In my recent visit to Fellsmere, Yolanda, the organizer of this project, let us know that although the community garden has been very successful, there were still a handful of women that could not tend or profit from the garden because of their busy work and family schedules. She is in the works of a new project, where she and other volunteers will provide these women’s with the tools to make an organic garden in their back yards. Since the community garden has been a great benefactor to the farm workers in Fellsmere because of the pesticide, cost efficient produce they have been able to enjoy, this project is very important to Yolanda and the farm worker women in Fellsmere.

Plan Proposal:
Throughout this Semester I have proposed to the YAYA Orlando chapter to team up with Yolanda in her effort to make organic gardens in the homes of several farm worker women. We will work with Yolanda and raise money, collect tools and provide the volunteers she needs to make these gardens happen.
I will set up donation bins in several local stores, set up a Paypal Donation account and possibly host a Yard Sale in order to raise funds. I will also promote this event on several networking sites in order to receive gardening tool donations. Lastly, YAYA has agreed to not only support but help me in this project, which means that many of the core YAYA members will not only help me raise funds and gather donations, but also plan a gardening day where a group of volunteers will travel to Fellsmere in order to help Yolanda set up these organic gardens.
By the completion of this service-learning project, my wish is to help Yolanda raise the resources to make at least 2 gardens in the homes of women farm workers.

Rationale: The Fellsmere women are amazing. They are inspiring, hard working and passionate. Alongside Yolanda, the Fellsmere women employ transformative agendas for their communities. They are involved with city politics and keep track of proposed legislations that concern the Farm Worker Community. They have recently achieved a great victory by demanding and successfully attaining free public transportation for undocumented workers in Fellsmere, a campaign that stemmed from the Florida law, which prohibits undocumented workers from attaining drivers licenses. Like Batliwala writes, these feminist leaders have ‘the power to influence agendas, even without the formal power or authority to do so”. (66 [my italics]) Yolanda and the women in Fellsmere are vital components of the community and their jobs provide us with the food we eat everyday, even with ‘undocumented’ status, these women fight and are on the vanguard of a “broader process of change” to benefit their community. (Batliwala). They are active participants in their community’s government, although they cannot ‘officially’ vote, they form meetings within their communities to discuss current legislations and speak with delegates of the local government, which are also part of their community.
In the brief time that I have interacted with the women in the Fellsmere community, I have been greatly moved and inspired by their leadership and activism. This is why I want to work with them; I know that I will learn from them and their leadership and organizational skills throughout this project.
Action: I have met and briefly discussed my idea with Yolanda. I have also informed YAYA of my project idea and have gotten the green light to formally contact Yolanda about this project through the YAYA organization.
I regularly attend YAYA meetings, therefore I will be able to inform and brainstorm with YAYA on a weekly basis regarding the project.
Once I receive Yolanda’s reply I will then organize around her needs for this project. I will also organize events to raise funds and donations. Yolanda and myself will then plan out the day where we will go out to Fellsmere in order to garden.
Timeline:
I will turn in my project on approximately April 15th, 2012. Please note that this date is subject to change due to the needs of the project and the needs of my community partner.

1. Formally email Yolanda about the proposed project through the YAYA organization 2/15
2. Visit Yolanda in Fellsmere in order to plan out activities and gardening day. 2/25
3. Yard Sale in order to raise funds 3/10
4. Possible Gardening day 3/31

This timeline is subject to change due to the needs of my community partner.

Word Count: 1104

Work Cited
ABOUT YAYA." YAYA Justice for Farm Workers! NFWM. Web. 14 Feb. 2012. .
Batliwala, Srilatha. "Feminist Leadership For Social Transformation: Clearing the Conceptual Cloud." Crea (2011): 66. Print.