Below are excerpts from participating students' final reflections on their experiences with the various service partners they worked with while in Peru. They compare how the service partners attack local development, thinking about similarities and differences in the organizations' strategies.
"Although the government does help fund the Comedores, much of it is independently run by the women of the town and those who use its services. The main goal of the government is so that each of the Comedores eventually becomes independent." --Marlena Santos
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"At Abre Puertas, Ellen made an effort to not only get the children with the program involved but their parents as well. However, she mentioned that though the families were enthusiastic about her starting the program, it is difficult to actually get them involved. Although Corazon de Dahlia is a similar organization regarding it being an after school program for kids, it [did not] seem like family involvement was a focus." --Raven Pitarra
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"It is clear that funding is a universal and fundamental issue that all of the locations suffer from. For example, I remember hearing from the Coya municipality that Coya is on the bottom of the list for funding and therefore, they do not receive a lot of money from the national government as a result of their smaller population." --Reshma Satish
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"Each service partner, although very different from each other, all tackled issues from the bottom up. Abre Puertas and Corazon de Dhalia empowered children by emphasizing kindness and positivity in after school programs for kids in the surrounding area. This encouraged children to stay in school and aided in changing the local community's mindset around education. The Comodores worked to fight hunger and malnutrition in their local community. By providing a meal for mothers, children, families etc. in need many people are able to focus on doing their work in the community rather than struggling to find a meal for that day. Each service partner works to bring the community and local development closer together by providing needed services that otherwise wouldn't exist." --Jessica Tullo
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"All of the service partners attack local development in the way that best suits their needs, but with a common goal: to improve community life. For example, AbrePuertas uses education to empower those in Coya, especially the youth population. Similarly, Corazón de Dahlia is an after-school program for kids ages 5-12 in the Saylla area. Comedores Populares is made up of a group of extremely hardworking women [who] cook to provide food for their own families and for those in the community that may otherwise lack adequate food supply." --Rachel Keller
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"The commodores are there for assistance but not dependence which helps push people towards self improvement. [All] three organizations provide different functions for their own communities in terms of the attention and care that they give, but serve as a great function in helping the people improve themselves and thus their community." --Roseann Puthiyamadam
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"Los comedores were very different from the other two service sites. First and foremost, we were deconstructing and reconstructing a soup kitchen rather than working with children. The labor was tough but we worked as a team in a chain, cadena, to get the work done." --Angela Papageorgiou
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