Public Service Scholar Reflection Essay

My service experience at UNC has been nothing short of phenomenal. Although I was not incredibly involved with service in my freshman year, I was very privileged to have been offered an opportunity to perform a service project in Bolivia in the area of microfinance.

My summer was spent working in a microfinance NGO in Cochabamba, Bolivia called CADEPIA, La Cámara de Pequeñas Industrias y Artisanías. I spent my first few weeks performing a needs-assessment with employees within CADEPIA as well as the micro-entrepreneurs who worked with the organization. My first project had to do with digitizing the digital receipts and records, several hundred new entries of which were being made each day. Traditionally, receipts and records were first hand written on paper and then manually transcribed onto the computer; a very arduous and time-consuming activity. As a computer science double-major, I created several Excel templates and wrote several macros that allowed a loan officer to enter in a client's information and pertinent details and click a button, at which point a digital receipt would automatically be generated and printed for the client's records. This immediately decreased the per-client service time by an order of magnitude.

Next, I noticed that many of the micro-entrepreneurs selling their crafts alongside the streets, competing with one another in what was not healthy competition. In order to remedy this, I organized a city-wide crafts fair where I rented out one of the plazas in the city and brought together all of our micro-entrepreneurs to sell their products. Artisans who produced similar products were located close to one another in the plaza. The week-long fair brought a tremendous amount of revenue to all ...

... middle of paper ...

...vice Scholars program, I've learned that service is less about the actual work that was done, but more about the motives and the learning that came as a result. I learned that the world was much bigger than myself, and that the greatest good in the world is that of helping those in need. I learned the value of little random acts of kindness and the joy they can bring to those in need. I also learned that when working abroad, it is important to always assume best intentions and to be humble about what you can and cannot do for a community whose culture is completely foreign. While I was in Bolivia, I brought with me Slaughterhouse Five, and I still remember with clarity the section where Vonnegut asks what greater purpose there is to life than to help others live it well. This resonated particularly well with me on the trip and has remained with me ever since.