This year the Service Learning Academy has been given the opportunity to work with an AmeriCorps VISTA.
AmeriCorps VISTA members serve organizations that help eradicate poverty by working alongside community organizations to meet the community's most pressing challenges and advance local solutions. The VISTA's focus is K-12 education and though we know education is an avenue out of poverty, if students are not participating in school and graduate, they perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
The VISTA initiative seeks to increase engagement of P-12 students and UNO students using service-learning to address poverty in Omaha, increase awareness of needs identified by individuals and groups currently experiencing poverty as previously collected from the community, and establish collaborative relationships with community organizations.
Now more than ever, we must support P-12 teachers, professors and community partners who work with folks experiencing poverty. Below are a number of resources and best practices that address the intersection of service-learning and poverty.