Service Learning Log

1. Activism: This week I volunteered at The Women to Women Conference in Apopka. This was a conference for migrant farmworkers to teach them about their rights, healthcare, self-defence and various other topics. The women were broken up into workshops from about 10am-3pm. My task for the conference was to be in charge of childcare. There were about 20-25 kids there and we kept them busy with coloring activities, games, and a game of kickball or two. This week felt very successful because we actually got to work not directly with the women but we made sure the children were very well taken care of so that they could concentrate on their workshops. Next Sunday we are going to the community garden in Fellsmere and I am really looking forward to it.
2. Reflection: The activism I have done this week, relates to what we have read in class because this conference was all about bringing these women together to empower them and to show them that they have rights too. It is very difficult to be able to bring groups of these women together as we have read about in the women workers in Maquiladoras article and also in the migrant domestic farmworker article. They rarely have any time off and they may not have anyone to watch their children, the language barrier may also be an issue. That’s why this conference was so great because they provided these women with childcare, breakfast and lunch and taught them many valuable things. According to Sarah Swider in her article Working Women of the World Unite?, she says “the unorganizable provides a new model for organizing that offers both the labor and the women’s movements a practical strategy for overcoming difficulties they face in the globalizing world” (Ferree & Tripp, p.129). The women walked out of there not just with gift bags but with a better sense of self.
3. Reciprocity: Volunteering at this conference was an amazing experience for me. We got to meet and get to know some terrific children and their mothers. It was also nice being part of something that allowed these women to have a day to focus on themselves.
Works Cited:
Ferree, Myra Marx, and Aili Mari Tripp. Global Feminism Transnational Women's Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2006. Print.

Service Learning Log

1. Activism: This week I got my assignment for the Women to Women Conference from Jenn Hollern, the Service Learning Coordinator for this conference. Heather, Gumbs, Athia and I will be coordinating some childcare activities for the children whose mothers are attending the conference, such as board games, crafts, and maybe some easy outside athletic games. I am also going to get together some donations for the conference. I am also looking forward to hopefully (if I can get off work) going to work in the community garden in Fellsmere with the group on April 3rd.
2. Reflection: This week in class we’ve talked a lot about women workers in the global market, we’ve also talked a lot about how women organize globally to solve issues. Jennifer Bickham Mendez says in her article Creating Alternatives from a Gender Perspective, that creating and taking advantage of a globalized political space through localized grassroots initiatives, the collective practices of women maquila workers’ movements have blown apart a simple notion of a global/local duality (Naples & Desai p.125). Obviously we aren’t working with maquila workers but they have a lot in common with migrant farmworkers in terms of being taken advantage of in the global marketplace. Its localized grassroots initiatives like the The Farmworker Association of Florida that are helping these women organize together and learn their rights. There was also a quote in this article that I thought was interesting, it’s from Mary Tong, the director of the Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers; she said, “Solidarity among workers should cross the border as easily as companies move production” (Naples & Desai p. 125). This quote can be helpful to everyone not just Maquiladora workers, if even the most diverse group has solidarity among it, they can come together to do great things.
3. Reciprocity: Since the Women to Women Conference isn’t till March 26th and the Fellsmere trip isn’t till April, I feel like I haven’t really gotten a chance to see any of the work that I’m doing take effect yet. I am really looking forward to working with these women and everything I can learn from them and from my classmates.

Works Cited:
Desai, Nancy. A Naples & Manisha. Women's Activism and Globalization: Linking Struggles and Transnational Politics. New York: Routledge, 2002.