Universidade Católica participates in UNISERVITATE Regional Meeting

The Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) took part in the UNISERVITATE Regional Meeting held in Madrid from June 16 to 18.

The meeting, on the theme of “Landing on the institutionalization of Service-Learning (SLL) in the South-West Europe region”, also included the participation of the South-West Europe universities that are part of this UNISERVITATE regional group: Catholic Universities of Deusto (Spain-Bilbao), San Jorge (Spain-Zaragoza), Comillas (Spain-Madrid), IQS-Instituto Químico de Sarrià (Spain-Barcelona), St Mary (UK) and Sacro Cuore (Italy-Milan).

There were three days of thematic meetings on teaching, spirituality and management, research and also on the impact of the ApS methodology on students and the organizations where the projects are implemented.

The meeting also had the special participation of Prof. Robert Bringle from the University of Indianapolis in the United States, who not only accompanied the representatives of the participating universities throughout the programme, but also gave a conference on the institutionalization and curricular development of ApS and also a workshop dedicated to the theme of research in ApS.

The meeting ended with a visit to the “Santa Maria de la Paz” Center in Madrid, a hostel that welcomes homeless people, a work of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God. During this visit, students from the nursing degree program at the University of Comillas presented the ApS project that they have been implementing throughout this academic year and, together with the teacher and people housed in this institution, they reflected on and shared the academic, personal and citizenship learning developed through this ApS project.

UNISERVITATE is a network of Catholic higher education institutions around the world, which promotes the Service-Learning methodology through technical and financial support for universities' action plans for institutionalizing ApS.