European Observatory of Service-Learning in Higher Education

Learning is a process of transformation and improvement as human beings

WHAT WE DO

Mapping of the Service-Learning Experiences in Higher Education across Europe

SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE

PLACE YOUR S-L EXPERIENCE ON THE MAP!

Challenge:

At least 100 EXPERIENCES SHARED in 20 different COUNTRIES by 31st December 2021

Experiences collected so far….

87 Experiences

Service-Learning Experiences Shared

18 Countries

Service-Learning experiences shared in different countries

SHARE YOUR POST-COVID EXPERIENCE

PLACE YOUR S-L EXPERIENCE IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 ON THE MAP!

Challenge:

At least 25 EXPERIENCES SHARED in 15 different COUNTRIES by 31st December 2021

Experiences collected so far….

3 Experiences

Service-Learning Experiences in RESPONSE To COVID-19 Shared

3 Countries

Service-Learning experiences in RESPONSE TO COVID-19 shared in different countries

Repository of Service-Learning Experiences

Creating an Asset-map for Veterans of the Joint Forces Operation in Ukraine

19/02/2021

Students develop their knowledge of organizations of the social sphere, especially working with combatants, developed skills of research and communication and found a lack of organizations providing social services

Educating with You (EducamosContigo)

18/02/2021

Post COVID: EducamosContigo is an interuniversity and inter-optional Learning-Service program that offers psychoeducational, school and digital literacy accompaniment online to families and students in situations of educational and social vulnerability at all pre-university educational levels.

Journalism and Citizenship: a Practical Introduction

18/02/2021

Post COVID: "Journalism and Citizenship, a Practical Introduction" wants students to reflect on the importance of (hyper)local journalism for the local (Brussels) community.

Home for children and youth without parental care - a public institution

Service-Learning at “Home for children and youth without parental care”

18/02/2021

Post COVID: Public Home for children and youth without parental care. During the last 12 months after COVID restrictions we tried to maintain the contact between the students and the children online, but this has not substituted in any way the in-person experience.

DO YOU KNOW SDG FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE?

03/12/2020

The "SApS ODS?" project for Global Justice aims to move from "Education for Global Citizenship" to a global justice paradigm that is considered more holistic, comprehensive and transformative.

Master Social Economics University of Antwerp ‘Social economy in the city of Antwerp’

23/11/2020

42 master students worked alongside the employees of six Antwerp social enterprises with the particular aim to foster social inclusion and social well-being via active employment.

Ludoteca Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Development and evaluation of a Service-Learning project for vulnerable children

23/11/2020

Study on service-learning experiences carried out at the Complutense University of Madrid. In this study it was found that the use of Service-Learning methodology was very limited

Gender and technology: promoting new technological vocations

04/11/2020

Sharing Ideas is a Service-Learning project in which undergraduate and master's degree students from the University of Barcelona (UB) prepare lecture-workshops on interesting topics related to their studies and teach these in high schools which the university visits.

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP

15/10/2020

RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP (Postdoctoral) A call for one post-doctoral research grant (BIPD) is open for the project “CApS – Catholic University and Service Learning: Innovation and Social Responsibility” Deadline 18th October 2020

SENSE Center for Civic Engagement and Responsible Management Education

01/09/2020

The SENSE Center enables students and civil society organizations as well as schools to jointly implement a practical project. In this way, students get to know the work in civil society and the educational system and experience what it means to take responsibility for society.

Physiotherapy for children with rare diseases

01/09/2020

To sensitize students to the true needs of families of children with rare diseases, beyond the necessary but insufficient focus on the child's disease.

Community Engaged Learning Service

23/07/2020

A consultancy at UCL that aims to enable the development of more Community Engaged Learning opportunities into teaching. Students and community partners have been at the centre of the service, co-designing its offering, processes and resources.

Workshop Series on Service Learning

22/07/2020

Workshop series Civic engagement at universities - examples for good practice in urban development , Engagement with and through digitalization as well as Civic engagement at changing/evolving universities.

Transformative Communication and Cultural Efficacy Festival

22/07/2020

To strengthen social awareness, ethics, and critical thinking in future media professionals through their engagement in the process of developing with a social partner an action on Communication for Social Change.

International Students Limerick Inside Out

Limerick Inside Out: Environment and Well-Being

22/07/2020

To enhance the students’ experience of being in Ireland by working closely with local civic groups.It incorporates activities designed to foster student awareness and understanding of environmental concerns and social innovation.

Success cases of entrepreneurial refugee women

15/07/2020

To collect and present in an attractive way successful stories of refugee women which had set up small business in Spain.

Reason and Engage

15/07/2020

Reason and Engage is an elective course for students from 3rd bachelor onwards. Students from different study programs are stimulated to reflect on urgent social challenges.

Social Services in times of crisis

15/07/2020

Responding to the community needs in times of the natural disaster, after the 6.4 earthquake in Albania in November 2019.Temporary accommodation, tents, social, psychological and edutainment services were offered to the affected families.

SLEEP AND COVID_19: LET’S GET OUR DREAMS BACK

13/07/2020

Evaluate the psychological consequences of Covid-19; raise awareness of sleep disorders resulting from Covid-19; spread solutions to this problem.

SUNDAY TOGETHER

13/07/2020

To valorize the Villa Borghese park in Rome, as a meeting place for young people and a place to take care of its green spaces without their mobile phones.

I’M LIKE YOU

13/07/2020

"I’m like you" born from a group of 3 psychology students who decided to face the cyberbullying problem. They had opened an Instagram page “Io come te” (I'm like you) to raise awareness on this issue, felt even more urgent because, during the pandemic, social media were the only way to have relationships with others.

Father Heart Engaged Learning Festival

13/07/2020

Inclusive educational event that offers an opportunity for all people to come together on an equal platform to share, learn or extend skills, knowledge, and expertise leading to sustainable livelihoods.

Learning Service Responsibility

06/07/2020

The project is determined by inclusion - The students get to know new fields and gain experience in areas (outside of school) with which they have not yet had any contact.

VUB Chair of Social Entrepreneurship – The Circular Economy Challenge

06/07/2020

The VUB Chair of Social Entrepreneurship, together with its partners, wanted to stimulate the creativity of students, entrepreneurs, and employees to develop innovative solutions for the circular economy.

Vub Chair

VUB Social Entrepreneurship Chair

01/07/2020

The main objective of this chair is to bring together both academia and business, NGO’s and public organizations in search of sustainable business models of social entrepreneurship.

Test reviewing as service-learning

29/06/2020

Service-learning project for providing independent reports on the quality of the tests available at the Psychology Test Library of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona while teaching psychometrics at undergraduate level.

Multiracial group of young people taking selfie

Learning aids for disadvantaged children, adolescents and young refugees in Nuremberg

24/06/2020

As a part of a practical assignment, students accompany children and adolescents as well as young refugees in Nuremberg.

Against Trafficking and other Human Rights Abuses in prostitution contexts

09/06/2020

The Project aims is to cover the social need to improve efficiency in the use of public resources, as well as to complete the training of students of the UNED (National Distance Education University)

Learning by educating: Service-learning experience of oral health promotion

05/06/2020

Our service objective is to educate in oral health, motivating people with different abilities to promote autonomy in their oral hygiene habits.

Service Learning in the Initial Training of Education Professionals

05/06/2020

Training of Education Professionals and Doctorate in Education, both include a subject with the principles of "Education for Sustainability".

Community Service Learning in Teacher Education

03/06/2020

All aspiring teachers fulfill community service learning during their educational bachelor program in a subject called ‘Identity In Diversity’. They follow this course during each year of the three-year program.

Loiola Law Clinic: Service-Learning for Social Justice

01/06/2020

Law Clinic has developed a legal-administrative dimension to serve people in a position of vulnerability and exclusion. Also translating the legal-administrative language into a simple language for the average citizen.

Federación Injucam Consulting Project

08/05/2020

Promotes social inclusion of marginalized children by developing comprehensive and stable socio-educational projects permanently adapted to emerging needs.

ALEPO SOAP (JABONES DE ALEPO)

30/04/2020

The NGO Rescue supports Syrian women to get a decent job in our country until the situation in their country improves and they will be able to return to their homes.

Los arrecifes de coral

22/04/2020

The main objective of the experience the design of a project following a “food chain” structure in which every participant was able to learn something and teach to other people

EcoApS-Educa

22/04/2020

University students took charge of doing an exhaustive research on mobile apps which may serve to develop and record a nature itinerary, as well as other apps aimed at plants and animals’ identification.

Proyecto Norte Joven

22/04/2020

The students should create an idea of how to carry the message they have to their target audience and also how to make it more attractive to them.

Amis Inserción Social Marketing

22/04/2020

To help to know the current labour market, design the professional profile, access tools for job search, prepare individual and group job interviews, for vunerable peple.

Lonelyness Solutions for elder people

22/04/2020

Working as a group, and trying to help Elder people to fight against the problem of lonelyness has been more satisfying than we ever expected.

Support in raising funds for Amis Entity

22/04/2020

From the finance team we had an objective, to obtain financing for the entity so that they could face their expenses and their day by day.

Working in Positive

21/04/2020

Dissemination of the Working in Positive organization and campaign to fight against labour discrimination of people with HIV. For the University to become a Working In Positive company.

Standard Label Bequal

21/04/2020

Business advise for an organisation that works crediting businesses with a quality seal that means the organization covers a series of requisites that have to do with disabled people.

Data Collection on Trafficking in Human Beings

15/04/2020

Consulting service to provide a diagnosis about trafficking on human beings in Spain. Specifically, the diagnosis must focus on the importance on data for making political decisions.

Data Culture in Human Trafficking

15/04/2020

To raise awareness about the significance of data culture related with human trafficking; study and understand the complexity of human trafficking data and providing a diagnosis of the human trafficking situation in Spain.

UNHCR, lost profits from red cards

15/04/2020

Report on the loss of income by asylum seekers from red ID cards in Spain

MEETING SCIENCE

14/04/2020

Share learnings between students with different abilities by creating a climate of respect and coexistence that allows developing spaces and times of practical life knowledge.

Integrating Service-Learning and ICT to support rural female entrepreneurship

31/03/2020

Graduate and Postgraduate courses in the field of the Business put into practice the knowledge acquired in class to advise a group of rural female entrepreneurs, using ICTs to facilitate University-Society communication

Service-Learning in Schools with Poor Readers Primary Children

27/03/2020

the student carries out the tasks of a teacher with a specialization in teaching and evaluating literacy in public schools with great needs for specialists in this area to attend to the diversity of children they shelter.

Effects of service-learning on migrant people and elderly in Melilla by PETE students

26/03/2020

Learning with Older Adults through Intergenerational Service Learning in Physical Education Teacher Education

Game for the Planet

24/02/2020

Our aim was to point out the dimension of interconnectedness and context in the given topics and to reflect on how each of us has an impact on others and also on the environment.

An ethical perspective of the company: Social Economy

18/02/2020

The students collect from the companies they work with, the information to prepare a diagnosis of their economic-financial situation. Improvement of current financial plan and possible strategies for your future development.

Learning from the Lives of Others

05/02/2020

Learning from the Lives of Others is a first year course which requires the students to maintain a weekly commitment as a volunteer at a partner charity, and to integrate reflective learning from their experiences as part of assessment.

Huelva Educa Program

22/01/2020

University students conducted interventions with students of Compulsory Education during a scholar course, with the aim of increasing their school performance, climate school and personal, social, school, and family adaptation.

IngénieuxSud

13/01/2020

To evolve the students’ mindset towards taking into account parameters related to sustainable development and social justice.

Learning by Doing: Consulting to Social Entrepreneurs

08/01/2020

Students design and execute a consulting project with a non-profit organization in order to resolve one or more concrete problems.

Service-Learning for Democratic Culture

10/12/2019

Language acquisition and led to the development of EUFICCS (European use of full-immersion: culture, content and service) that was born as a European project and subsequently adopted as a teaching methodology.

Service-learning for democratic culture

10/12/2019

Stemming from this service-learning has become a privileged tool not only for the acquisition of language and culture but more extensively for the development of a culture of democracy based on RFCDC.

IMPULS | Facilitating Service Learning for Sustainability

15/11/2019

Support for lecturers from all disciplines who wish to integrate sustainability topics into their courses, we want to enable our students to become change agents for sustainability.

Sociology and Service-Learning

18/10/2019

Authentic, positive, meaningful learning moments benefiting partners and students. Addressing complex problems in complex settings rather than simplified problems in isolation.

Religion and Values in Urban Challenges and Well-being

08/10/2019

Students can analyze the interconnections of urban contexts, social challenges and religion and values.

Support for Local Gymnasium to Ensure Effective Feedback on the Quality of Education

07/10/2019

To design and implement a system of surveys as Feedback mechanism tools and to have a more systematic, comprehensive and reliable feedback channel to gather data from stakeholders.

Personal Challenge and Experience through social Engagement

30/09/2019

Job-relevant skills such as communication skills, conflict skills and teamwork are required and trained in the engagements.

Learning through the Assumption of Social Responsibility: Social Inequality, Poverty and Housing

25/09/2019

Housing, as a fundamental human need, enables participation in social life, but in many major cities affordable housing is becoming an increasingly scare resource.

Hands On Learning in the Local Community: a Hyperlocal Journalism Experiment

25/09/2019

Students are invited to get to know societal partners in the environment of their institution and produce stories that are relevant for the community which surrounds them.

Service Learning in the Course: “Didactical Planning, Analysis, Teaching, Evaluation of Learning Situations”

25/09/2019

The curricular learning goal is, that students learn about didactical planning instruments and theories.

Law and Voluntary Work

25/09/2019

During the first half of the semester students have classes with relevant people related to the Social Justice field and during the second, they complete a number of hours of voluntary work within an institution.

Criminology and Service-Learning

25/09/2019

About 250 undergraduate students in their second year, take a core module, Criminology & Service-Learning. They work in groups with local not for profit organisations.

The Neighbourhood as a Learning Community

25/09/2019

To explore and enhance collaboration opportunities with work field organisations in the neighbourhoods surrounding the new campus through community-based learnin

Community Service and Community Engagement in Higher Education

25/09/2019

To develop ways of education in which students from various disciplines by working together with community partners contribute to local social issues in neighborhoods.

ENGAGE STUDENTS

25/09/2019

Promoting Social Responsibility of Students by Embedding Service Learning into Education Curricula

Master Thesis on Vulnerable Women with Science Shop

25/09/2019

The student developed a workshop with and for vulnerable women about sexuality.

Women with special needs and labour market

Guide on Activation for the Employment of Women with Disability.

25/09/2019

Achieve an understanding of the real situation of women with disabilities in the labour market.

Domestic Economy Course for Vulnerable Families

25/09/2019

For the students to desing the contents and material to work, to help vulnerable families to better manage the resources with which they have.

Day of Human-Animal Interaction

24/09/2019

Aims to promote responsible ownership, prevention of cruelty towards animals, and optimal human-animal interactions.

Service-Learning for Web Technology: Educational Games for Children with Disabilities

24/09/2019

The students interacted with the non-profit WAI-NOT to develop a set of online exercises to help children with disabilities master basic computer skills.

Community Research Service Learning Program

24/09/2019

To promote learning as a service for the classroom in which the students are engaged in their apprenticeship.

Self-Identity and Intergenerational Learning

24/09/2019

We aim to help reduce loneliness among students and older adults, and to improve intercultural and intergenerational communication.

Foto de Niños creado por freepik - www.freepik.es

Students & Community-Based Participatory (Evaluation) Research

24/09/2019

Students are organised in small research teams, focused on various aspects of the planned participatory evaluation research.

Photo by Daria Nepriakhina on Unsplash

UNIAKTIV Centre for societal learning and civic responsibility

24/09/2019

UNIAKTIV tests different forms of Campus-Community-Partnerships such as Community-based Research, Design-Thinking-Variants and Social-Entrepreneurship-approaches.

The Serving University

24/09/2019

Getting students of all programs involved in service to the mentally handicapped, homeless, orphans, poor, displaced, abandoned.

Limerick Inside out: Intercultural competence for global citizenship

11/09/2019

The aim of the service-learning experience to enhance the international students' experience of being in Ireland by working closely with civic groups in addressing the needs of refugees and asylum seekers who have moved to the Limerick area.

Early Stimulation of Developmental Capacities if Children without Parental Care Aged 0 to 7

05/09/2019

To provide activities for enhancement of physical, motor, cognitive, social, emotional and language capacities in children aged 0 to 7 based at a children home without parental care.

Volunteering@WU

05/09/2019

Works with kids from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, supporting them in their educational career and also benefiting student helpers by encouraging social responsibility and volunteering activities.

Design and disability

27/08/2019

Students works on designing and creating prototypes of pieces of equipment for people with special needs.

Kruzej – Kroz muzeje jednaki (Cruiseum – Equal Through Museums)

26/08/2019

To increase the interest of high school students in museums and other heritage institutions and to enable high school students to critically engage and address the idea of equality.

S-L 395 Social Action Seminar

26/08/2019

It support student placements by providing context to deepen their understanding of current social justice issues. Particular focus will be given to the impact of immigration on Italian society.

“OTOP. Otro Tiempo Otro Planeta”

12/07/2019

OTOP is a not-for-profit cooperative composed of women who are victims of gender violence and sexual harassment, all of them at risk of socioeconomic exclusion.

Foto de Personas creado por katemangostar - www.freepik.es

Service-Learning and Community Engagement Lab

02/07/2019

Learning outcomes: The laboratory based on the methodology of service learning intends to favour an experiential learning (learning)

Photo by Ewan Yap on Unsplash

Service-learning in a Chinese context: connecting encounters

02/07/2019

Students of Chinese Studies undertake a service-learning course of 12 credits during their year abroad in China.

African American adult student working in computer class

Foto de Personas creado por pch.vector - www.freepik.es

Centro de Aprendizagem e Intervenção na Comunidade (Pilot- Project)

02/07/2019

Contribute to the pedagogic innovation and the civic participation of Higher Education Students, integrating in the academic curricula learning experiences through University-Community Partnerships,

“Clase Mágica-Sevilla”. An experience of SL and Identity Transformation

02/07/2019

Our participants are students of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain). There are participating in the subject matter

Attention to Children of Mothers in Penitentiary Centers

02/07/2019

First year students from the School of Teacher Training and Education collaborate with AMPARA association in providing care to 1-3 years old children who live in prison with their mothers.

Promoting S-L in the UAB through Final Degree Projects

24/04/2020

Our program is a transverse university program which aim is to maximize the number of students doing their Final Degree Project (FDP) with Service-Learning methodology. This program is focused on three different actors: a) social and environmental organizations and institutions b) university teachers c) university students.

Strategy definition for Caritas labor insertion companies

11/11/2019

The project consisted in developing the business strategy of 3 different labor insertion companies (Taller99, Asiscar, Carifood) belonging to the NGO Cáritas. Taller 99 is dedicated to manufacturing leather goods (bags, wallets ...) and making clothes, Asiscar works in the transport sector, doing removals and transporting goods, and Carifood focuses in the catering industry.

Large-Scale Community Engagement.

24/09/2019

Community engagement (CE) or Academic Service Learning (ASL) is embedded into the academic programs and provides a deep learning experience for students, fostering the development of skills for managing relationships, problem-solving and civic responsibility, which provides a competitive edge to students entering the world of work.

Safe friend is always a trend!

17/09/2019

Due to the fast and constant development of IT and social media in today’s world, the informatics curriculum in primary schools cannot follow the fast-changing trends and easily becomes out of date, failing to cover important topics, such as child safety and child security on the Internet or child manipulation by social media influencers

Mothers Unit

16/07/2019

Mothers Units are an innovative and valuable resource for women who have to face criminal responsibility and have minor children under their care, for the children to be able to remain with their mother in a stimulating and safe environment for the children development.

Please, share exhaustive information about service-learning good practices in higher education. It is mainly composing of qualitative data in order to share common quality criteria and systematized contents.

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S-L Projects

27/11/2019

COMMIT – Committing to the social dimension in universities

This project builds on the work of a previous project - ALLUME, http://allume.eucen.eu -which developed three self-evaluation tools to help universities reviewing their internal strategy for the implementation of a comprehensive and coherent Lifelong Learning University approach.

11/11/2019

Europe Engage

08/11/2019

European Observatory of Service Learning in Higher Education (EOSLHE)

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Service-Learning in Higher Education

Service-learning (sometimes referred to as community based or community engaged learning) is an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates meaningful community service or engagement into the curriculum and offers students’ academic credit for the learning that derives from active engagement within the community and work on a real world problem. Reflection and experiential learning strategies underpin the learning process and the service is linked to the academic discipline.

It brings together students, academics and the community whereby all become teaching resources, problem solvers and partners. In addition to enhancing academic and real world learning, the overall purpose of is to instil in students a sense of civic engagement and responsibility and work towards positive social change within society.

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

Benjamin Franklin

A good service-learning practice is an experience that meets the main characteristics of this methodology:

community-service

Integrates meaningful service and meets real needs

academic-discipline

The service is linked to the academic curriculum

learning-process-reflection

Reflection is part of the learning process

community-organization

Community organizations are valued as partners

student-strong-voice

Students have a strong voice

Who we are
University Service-Learning Association

We are a Spanish association created in 2017 with the purpose of strengthening the collaboration and exchange of experiences of Service-Learning, disseminate educational and social projects based on this methodology, promote research and support the processes of institutionalization of the Service-Learning in the Spanish universities.

Overview of University Service-Learning Association

MORE INFO

Core Team

Pilar Aramburuzabala

Director of the EOSLHE
Autonomous University of Madrid

Bio

She has been working for the past 20 years on Service-Learning with university students. She is the Coordinator of the Service-Learning Program in the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education of the UAM. President of the Association of University Service-Learning and promoter of the European Network of Learning-Service in Higher Education. She is an advisor to the Municipal Office of Service-Learning of the Madrid City Council.

Berta Paz

Deputy Director of the EOSLHE
Universidad de les Illes Balears

Bio

PhD in Education with European Mention, Master in Development Cooperation, Master in Bioethics and Humanization of Assistance. Degree in pedagogy, Degree in Audiovisual Communication. Deputy Director of the UIB Graduate Center.

Currently, she is responsible for the Service-Learning program at UIB, coordinator of the S-L Illes Balears Center and is involved on a R&D project that includes S-L approach.

Marta Alonso

Coordinator of the EOSLHE
S-L (U) Association

Bio

As a coordinator, I am responsible for the implementation of the European Observatory to enhance and disseminate the knowledge of Service-Learning in Higher Education. Master in Management of Non-Profit Entities and BA (Hons) Design and Media Management. Over 15 years of experience working on Social Innovation Projects and Cooperation for Development Projects.

Álvaro Ribeiro

Researcher of the EOSLHE
S-L (U) Association

Bio

Teaching, researching, and producing in the field of organizational studies, his theoretical and/or empirical work aims at the advancement of knowledge about educational organizations, organizing, and the informal contexts in which such organizations operate. Under cooperation protocols between universities and Portuguese and EU youth work agencies, he has been actively participating in research tasks and representing the Portuguese team in international partner meetings, especially in terms of multi-metaphoric research projects. He has been focused in research-based analysis and monitoring (of the European Solidarity Corps), approaches to participation and citizenship education and learning, competence development and capacity building, strategies and practices for organizational development, and learning of organizations and networks in the European youth sector.

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Share your service-learning experience

MORE INFO

Learning is a process of transformation and improvement as human beings

Mapping of the Service-Learning Experiences in Higher Education across Europe

Challenge:

At least 100 EXPERIENCES SHARED in 20 different COUNTRIES by 31st December 2021

Experiences collected so far….

Challenge:

At least 25 EXPERIENCES SHARED in 15 different COUNTRIES by 31st December 2021

Experiences collected so far….

Repository of Service-Learning Experiences

Share this post

Good practices

S-L Projects

Service-Learning in Higher Education

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

A good service-learning practice is an experience that meets the main characteristics of this methodology:

Integrates meaningful service and meets real needs

The service is linked to the academic curriculum

Reflection is part of the learning process

Community organizations are valued as partners

Students have a strong voice

Who we are University Service-Learning Association

Overview of University Service-Learning Association

Core Team

Pilar Aramburuzabala

Berta Paz

Marta Alonso

Álvaro Ribeiro

Share your service-learning experience

Who we are
University Service-Learning Association