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For over ten years, our office in Uruguay has been working on service-learning projects in the context of incarceration. Since 2009, CLAYSS has collaborated with the Penitentiary Unit No. 13 in Maldonado, Uruguay, to carry out the service-learning project of vegetable gardens and composting, in which 60 people participate with educators, leaders and officials. The garden consists of more than 2 hectares, including 2 greenhouses, 8 germinators and an area for composting; the entire premises have a rainwater collection system for irrigation. The harvested goods are for internal consumption, donations or local sales. A new project is under development to make biodegradable flowerpots from yerba mate.
The work involves reflection activities with the DEJA-ANEP teacher in charge through weekly meetings to discuss the project, what is happening and the possibilities this work provides to inmates.
The vegetable garden project, in turn, gave way to other projects based on the interests of its participants, following the lines of the Integral Ecology programme and service-learning: reuse of plastic bottles, botanical basket-making, carpentry and pyrography.
This work helps all those involved to understand the holistic nature of service-learning in terms of integral ecology and environmental education. But it also gives the chance to create or strengthen partnerships with others and network through agreements and meetings with community partners, as well as families and the community in general.
Today, the Penitentiary treatment offers the institutional project “Aprendizaje y Servicio Solidario para mejorar el medio ambiente y la convivencia en la Unidad 13 [Service-Learning to improve the environment and daily coexistence in Unit No. 13],” which makes it stand out as an innovator.
