Service-learning in times of a pandemic: campaign against dengue fever through virtual games for children in isolation

Abstract

The current social and health situation amidst the COVID-19 pandemic necessarily entails adjustments and changes in educational practices. The experience this paper relates took place at a time of preventive and compulsory social isolation in Argentina between March and July 2020. The experience was developed within the framework of a university interdisciplinary outreach project, based on service-learning, and it aimed at developing students’ generic competences, such as social responsibility, motivation, creativity, teamwork and the application of theory and practice, all within a virtual space as a consequence of the current context caused by the pandemic. The experience also aimed to foster students’ social responsibility with good practices for the prevention of COVID-19 and dengue fever. To evaluate the experience, different qualitative instruments were used, and, in all cases, they revealed that the proposed objectives were met, highlighting a high level of satisfaction with the virtual experience, not only among the student volunteers, but also among the children and their families. Virtual platforms enabled us to recreate face-to-face work without losing the university social responsibility, and they also helped to promote responsibility from childhood, motivating everyone to face the needs imposed by the current reality as a team.