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UNIVERSITY HONORS PROGRAM

HONORS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROJECT PROPOSAL COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
HONORS EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROJECT PROPOSAL FORM

Basic Information
Full Name: Melody Joy McGee
UC ID#: M04223586
UC Email: mcgeemy@mail.uc.edu
Phone: 513-505-9341
College: College of Nursing
Major: Nursing
Title of Project: Habitat for Humanity Missions Trip
Expected Project Start Date: June 2015
Expected Project End Date: July 2015
Project Information
1. Provide a brief overview/abstract of your proposed honors experiential learning project.
Habitat for Humanity believes that every man, woman, and child should have a decent, safe, and affordable
place to live. Habitat for Humanity builds for people in need whether that is housing, revitalizing
neighborhoods, or simply lending a helping hand to anyone in need. Around the world there are millions of
people living without adequate living or even living without a home. It is Habitat for Humanitys mission to help.
One of my own personal dreams has been to go on a missions trip to South Africa and help wherever I am
needed. South Africa has very abundant resources and developing infrastructures, it is on its way to becoming a
stable country. However, because of extreme poverty, and considerable economic and social problems, the South
African people crowd in the cities to look for employment. This leaves the rest of the South African people to live
in small townships without adequate services, homes, or even essential means of survival. My plan is to join the
habitat for humanity team and change lives by providing my time, money, energy, prayers, and assistance in
relieving these rural areas. I will spend a month in South Africa working, living, and acting as a South African
would. Since habitat has formed they have helped over 11,000 people in South Africa alone, each project by
Habitat is tailored based on location, likely homeowner, and community. Did you know that 18% of the Southern
African community is affected with HIV/AIDS? I plan on helping the Habitat for Humanity team build 60 new
homes for AIDS orphans, vulnerable children, and any whom are living in critical circumstances. Helping people
has always been a passion of mine; through this experience I will be able to help people in personal growth as
well as helping a depleted community grow again. I will be spending time each day working with the Habitat
team, of approximately 22 people, to complete the 60 houses within a month. This project will use around 730
hours of my time and they will be broken down between: building (about 10 hours a day,) experiencing the
culture (around 3-4 hours a day,) reflecting (roughly an hour,) and lastly eating/sleeping. However, I will also be
able to get to know the community around me, I plan on engaging in the community by living amongst them
during my month in South Africa. Each day I will reflect on my time spent in South Africa by keeping a journal,
as well as a video journal. These tools will be used to document what happens during each day, whether that may
be a short clip, description, or interview with one of the South African people. But I will also use the tools to see
how this experience has affected me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I expect after such an experience to
become more relatable and open to helping people in similar circumstances. I expect to be more sympathetic, and
more generous with my time.
1. Connection to Learning Outcomes within an Honors Thematic Area:
Bringing the community together as one is my top priority for this project. It is very important to understand and to
learn what I am doing and how it will affect the South African people before I leave for this conquest.

I need to be able to:

Relate, communicate, and work effectively with others towards sustainable social change.
I believe that I will be able to achieve this goal by putting myself out there, allowing myself to build relationships with
the South African people; listening to their stories, learning their culture, also providing sympathy for their situations.
What will help me to relate to the South African people is if I imagine myself in their shoes. Not having a nice place to
live or clean drinking water, imaging how these situations would affect me. I am sure many of the South African people
are hurting and need support and that is ultimately what the Habitat for Humanity team plans on giving them.
Another goal I hope to achieve while I am living in South Africa is:
Possesses awareness of purpose of service, including need for reciprocity, understanding of social issues, and ability to see
those issues from multiple perspectives. With this goal, I intend to recognize any social injustices that may be going on and
help to improve or eliminate them. It is important to help the South African citizens receive what they deserve but it also
important to make sure that we look at every aspect of the situation to make sure that we are helping them effectively and
righting any wrong. By working with the South African people we will teach them why we are apart of this service-learning
experience and the purpose of helping build their community. Also relaying to them that it is equally important for them to
help themselves and to help others who may be in need. And lastly, with this experience I wish to achieve:
Participating in the community and understanding our own roles as citizens of community. Personally, this goal works
along side my previous goal, however I feel that it is important to accomplish both simultaneously. I do plan on relating
to the South African people, however for approximately 30 days I will be a South African Citizen. I will be apart of the
community, so if my responsibility is to go and get clean drinking water, that is what I will do. This goal will enable me
to accomplish understanding the community and brainstorming ways to help build them pick themselves back up. We
will be providing them houses but if we can do more for them, this goal will allow the team to see what more we can
provide the community.
2. Connection to Goals and Academic Theories
The biggest goal I have in my life is to become an RN, or a Registered Nurse. I have always been able to see
myself as a nurse because it is my passion to help those in need. Right now I am in my second year as a Nursing
student and I absolutely love what I am doing. The truth is my major is hard. It is extremely challenging compared to
other majors offered at the University of Cincinnati, however I do it despite the challenge because it is my dream. I
could not see myself doing anything else with my life. I believe this project will help me grow personally, because I
will be working so closely with children in need. My job will be to provide them with guidance, sympathy, and fun,
which will teach me compassion. It will help me grow to be more passionate about helping those in need. Yes, I
would say I am a passionate person, but this opportunity will put my passion to a test. This opportunity will provide
the tools I need to be a good nurse and a great person someday. This opportunity will provide me with excellent
professional experience, as a lot of these people need extensive medical care. If I can help the South Africans in need,
it will do wonders for my career in the United States.
To prepare for this opportunity I decided to read Helping, Fixing, or Serving? an article by Rachel Naomi
Remen. This article reveals what Helping Fixing or Serving encompasses and what they aim to provide. In the
article it states: Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only
serve that to which we are profoundly connected." This opening statement makes me regret wanting to help others
but makes me want to serve them. It describes a helper relationship as not equal. The helper thinks that they are
superior to whom they are helping. It says that helping unintentionally takes away from the victim, whether that is
their self-esteem or self worth. However, it also says that the server serves for others. The server serves without
thinking of themselves first; the server empowers others. I chose Remens article for one of my resources because it
inspired me. Instead of wanting to help people, I choose to serve others. I want to be able to understand and strengthen
others. During this trip it will be my utmost priority to cater to the South African people in any way I know how.
Whether that means having faith in their community, praying with them, teaching them, and also most important,
learning from them. This trip is all about experiential learning, or learning through the experience of service. This is
my first service-learning experience so I decided to also read an article by Gerri E. Perreault, whom is an expert on
being a Citizen Leader. In Perreaults article: Citizen Leader: A Community Service Option for College Students,
he describes the different types of service that college students seek to be involved in. Perreault breaks down the
service and reveals what the meaning of each experience is and how it may affect the student. For example, Gerri uses
the example charity; in this type of service the student is providing seemly innocent service to those that are less
fortunate. However, there are negative consequences to this form of service; because it is a giver-receiver relationship,
the giver may feel superior to those receiving and the receiving may feel below the giver. This form is not ideal for
my trip. I want to be equal with the South African people. I wish to earn their trust. After reading Perreaults article, I

see that I have to become an active citizen by using the Citizen Leadership approach. In this approach, the students
main goal is to educate for leadership and work for changes that ultimately help shape a community and its future.
This type of education allows both the students and the South African citizens to collaborate as concerned citizens,
which will likely increase South African participation in the community and government.

3. Initiative, Independence, and/or Creativity:

What can I bring to the table? Most people would say, I am a friendly person or I am good with people. These are
true; I would say that I am good with people. However, my contribution will be to serve others through my
positivity, friendliness, and faith in others. From experience, I have noticed people do not like to be helped. They
prefer to assume they can help themselves. I have also experienced those, whom are so broken; they do not know how
to be helped. Both situations are often seen, and both are upsetting. I wish to teach the South African people to stay
positive when things may get tough. It is an extremely difficult lesson to teach and to learn from. My duties will be to
communicate, teach, and learn from the South African people. It is important to engage them, to talk to them, and
keep them participating through the whole process. The team will develope new ways to keep the South African
people active in their community. Examples may be: establishing a community bond between the South African
people, this may be through getting a committee started as a support system for each other. Also allowing the South
African people to help the team build houses; if they are interested in helping this is a good way for them to build
their community up and shape friendships. I believe that with the help of the Habitat for Humanity team, the South
African community will be changed for good. Lastly, I would enjoy keeping in touch with the people I meet while I
am down there. I have proposed a plan; I will present the idea of creating a pen pals program between the South
African people and the University Honors Community. A Pen Pal is a long distance acquaintance; someone whom
you write to in your spare time and get to know them a little better. I will see who is interested in this proposal and
match up a University Honors student with a South African. This Pen Pal can last until both stop writing each other. I
believe it will be a good way to learn from others experiences and life lessons along the way.
4. Reflection
For my reflection, I will be using two separate documentation methods. I will keep a personal journal for the
month I am away, and in this journal I will be documenting each day right before I go to bed. The kinds of things I
want to document are: How I am feeling after working that day? What if any, new things have I experienced? What
my favorite thing about the day is, and my least favorite. If I did not enjoy something, what is it, and how can I
change it to improve my tomorrow? Those are just a few questions that come to mind whenever I start something
new. Along with my personal journal, I will be bringing a video camera to visually document my trip. With this video
camera I will capture moments during the workday, during our breaks, and document interviews with the South
African people, if they will allow me. I want to get scenes of the South African villages of both before and after we
start building. Also I want to document the tone of the community, an example of this would be facial expressions. I
want to record the community before, during, and after and see how it will affect the South Africans facial
expressions, as well as the tone among the community. I would prefer to visually record throughout each day, as much
as I can, and reflect personally after the day has ended. I think these tools will be very efficient and effective
throughout my service-learning experience.
5. Dissemination
For my dissemination, I want to share my experiences with anyone and everyone. Since I am not only using a
personal journal for documentation, but also a video, I would like to use both to share with people what my
experience was and how it has changed me. I plan on editing all my visual documentation into a short and sweet video
of my experience and putting it on my weebly page. I first want to present to my nursing class of my trip with Habitat
for Humanity, and emphasize on my personal and professional growth along the way. It might be helpful to present to
them first because most of my nursing class will be interested in working in hospitals overseas after seeing how
simply building houses and forming a bond with a community can change and improve their future. Plus the South
African community is still not where America is, it is going to take a lot of time and help to get them on their feet.
Second, I want to present to the Honors Gateway classes. My experience will be a prime example of how serving

others can impact your life and maybe even rethink what he or she plan to do with their future. Also, I believe that my
experience will help show or provide an example of what traveling overseas is like.
6. Project Advisor
Advisor: Gregory Foster
Title: Senior Vice President (Africa and Middle East)
Contact Information: Call toll-free 1-800-461-9330 or email: ame@habitat.org

7. Budget
There could be multiple ways to fund this project. If it is not possible to get a grant, this project could benefit
from fundraisers. Holding walkathons, dinners, and candy sales are just a few options to explore in regard to
raising money. The great thing about this project is that there are so many possibilities for the charitable work we
will be doing; therefore I think people will open their hearts and their wallets to our project. A round trip ticket
from Cincinnati to Johannesburg, South Africa is around $2,000 per person. I expect food will be at least $400 a
person; however that is just an estimate. Lodging will be free for me and the Habitat team. We have been invited
to stay with a family in Johannesburg; they have lent their basement for our use and agreed not to charge us rent,
if we provide our own food. Building supplies will be provided by Habitat for Humanity. My trip will cost me an
estimated $2,400. Lets get to work.