A Leadership Experience of Building Community in a Colombia

In another example of what terrific potential small beginnings can have, two Gonzaga PhD candidates approached working with rural coffee farmers on a community development project driven by the local host co-op association, ASOPECAM, from a community development perspective. In community development, the local host drives the project, so the research/service learning project was about what the host wanted, not what outsider team wanted to give (an ongoing problem in development work).  Using the heart of servant-hood, Russell Horton and Nathaniel Pearson strove to model servant-leadership, feeling the call that they were in the right place at the right time, offering what small piece of assistance they could to better this world.  Time will, of course, be the judge. But they were the first Gonzaga University student group into Colombia (a country still partially under U.S. State Department travel warnings) with the responsibility to blaze a trail for those students who will come after, hopefully accomplishing even greater projects. Join us as we discuss Rusty and Nate’s research/service learning project and discover another example of how a small start can have great impact in other people’s lives.