Building Solutions In Africa: Students Engage In Cross-Cultural Learning Through Service

This article reflects on a service learning model that strives to teach the core principles of landscape architecture in a cross-cultural learning environment. Our case study examines a project that represents the work of World Help Solutions, an organization founded by Purdue University Landscape Architecture students to aid non-profit organizations. The mission of this new service-learning organization is to provide sustainable design solutions that take into consideration the unique contributions of residents and local experts who have knowledge of area conditions, needs and challenges. The work of the organization includes meetings with intended recipients, consultation with experts in the fields of question and testing of possible solutions. In addition, the chapter members and volunteers help the communities implement the plan. As part of this experience students gain new insights into diverse cultural systems and values, alternative professional approaches and design solutions, as well as their own individual identity that contributes to their world view. This paper describes the organization’s methods for engagement on a global level and examines the opportunities that it provides students for putting their experience and research to work to transform both people and place. The service learning project described in this paper was completed in 2010. It involved the design and construction of a series of erosion control dams in Kigoma, Tanzania, a city on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika in central Africa. This work in Kigoma identifies the successes of participatory engagement and serves as a model for the possibilities and challenges of cross-cultural service learning. The project was successful in demonstrating to the people of this poor city of 135,000 the value of trees in an urban setting, and how to manage water as a precious commodity in an area where survival hinges on the arrival of the rainy season. In a city that reflects the social and environmental inequities present in the world today, Purdue students did something that changed lives. Cross-cultural service learning projects such as this acknowledge the global character of our profession and prepare students for participation as responsible and ethical practitioners.