Meeting between Uniservitate and the Catholic University of Paraná, Brazil

Under the partnership between the Uniservitate programme and the Global Compact on Education (GCE), a meeting with leaders of the Catholic University of Paraná, Brazil (PUCPR, in its acronym in Portuguese) took place on 7th August. PUCPR is a reference of the GCE regarding the area "Dignity and Human Rights".
This meeting is part of the transformation process that has taken place at the Brazilian higher education level due to the inclusion of outreach activities in the curriculum and service-learning as a strategy to achieve it. 
This meeting was the second opportunity to exchange experiences this year after an introductory webinar on service-learning in February. During the meeting in August, Candelaria Ferrara, coordinator of the Uniservitate regional hubs, gave a talk and discussed with 15 representatives and coordinators of the council in charge of monitoring the university's mission and identity processes. On this occasion, the focus was on the service-learning pedagogy and how this proposal for institutional transformation relates to the university extension department, the Global Compact on Education and the university's identity, especially to the PUCPR, since it is a Marist Catholic community university.

The group's exchange was fruitful and left open the possibility to continue strengthening this alliance and joint work. In conclusion, the participants agreed that the training activities at universities should not only highlight the pedagogical dimension of service-learning, but also point out aspects that affect the governance of the institutions.