Service-learning within the context of a pandemic and a lockdown: sustaining University-Community relationship through virtual presence

Abstract

This paper reports how the ‘Luli in Service 2020’ service-community project experienced the critical moments of the pandemic and lockdown. The project did not shy away from reality, but rather responded to it by using existing digital capabilities in a campaign aimed at providing food security for low-income, vulnerable people, and in all stages of the campaign: from decision-making, empowering students to self-organize and forming alliances  with partners to providing accountability. With the lessons learned, the idea that motivated the group at the beginning was retaken: working with a remote community on the Ecuadorian coast.