In a commitment to social justice, COV hosts Social Justice Forums and advocacy opportunities for COV participants to gather as a group and learn about the justice issues and systemic factors which condition the need for service in the first place.
The goal of these activities is to create a justice-based framework through which students can process their service experience in an effort to bridge the gap between charity and solidarity. The forums are designed to raise awareness about issues which are directly tied to work of our different community partners, and to examine the larger impact these issues have on the experience and social outcomes of the community members who face them.
The COV participants have the opportunity to close relationships with the people they meet through service through the course of the semester, and the thrust of this social justice education is to emphasize that these personal relationships also demand of the participants larger justice commitments. In this, the hope is to redefine understandings of neighbor, collapse the globe, and shape future activists.
