UNISERVITATE is the global programme for the promotion of service-learning in Catholic Higher Educat
Its objective is to generate a systemic change through the institutionalization of service-learning as a tool to achieve its mission of offering an integral education to the new generations and involving them in an active commitment to the problems of our time.
18/12/2025
✨ ¡Muy feliz Navidad a toda la Red Mundial Uniservitate!
Con nuestros mejores deseos,
El equipo de Uniservitate-CLAYSS
✨ Merry Christmas to the Uniservitate Global Network!
With our best wishes,
The Uniservitate-CLAYSS team
18/12/2025
[ESP]
✨ Este año nos mostró que, incluso en los contextos más difíciles, la solidaridad y la fraternidad siguen siendo fuentes de esperanza y transformación. 🤝🌟
🙌 Gracias por acompañarnos, por confiar en el aprendizaje-servicio solidario y por ser parte activa de esta propuesta educativa que crece en todo el mundo. 🌍
Que estas fiestas traigan paz, alegría y el impulso renovado de soñar y hacer posible una educación mejor para todos, y un mundo más justo y solidario. 🕊️💫🌎
🥂 ¡Muy felices Fiestas! 🥂
El equipo de CLAYSS 💙
[ENG]
✨ This year has shown us that, even in the most challenging times, solidarity and fraternity remain a source of hope and transformation. 🤝🌟
🙌 Thank you for your ongoing support, your trust in solidarity service-learning, and your active participation in this pedagogical approach that continues to grow worldwide. 🌍
May this season bring you peace, joy, and the renewed spirit to dream and make possible a better education for everyone, and a more just and caring world. 🕊️💫🌎
🥂 Happy Holidays! 🥂
The CLAYSS Team 💙
17/12/2025
🇦🇷 🇧🇷 PUCPR y CLAYSS: La Extensión Universitaria Celebra su Compromiso Social en Brasil 🏆
La Pontificia Universidad Católica de Paraná (PUCPR) realizó con éxito la 2ª Jornada Extensionista, un valioso espacio de articulación, intercambio y celebración de prácticas de excelencia en y Aprendizaje-Servicio Solidario.
El evento fue el marco para la entrega de la 2ª edición del Premio Docente Extensionista, que busca reconocer e impulsar las acciones que integran de forma innovadora la enseñanza, la investigación y el compromiso social.
La comisión evaluadora contó con la participación de especialistas internacionales, incluyendo a nuestros referentes del Programa Uniservitate: Andrés Peregallí (vicecoordinador) y Candelaria Ferrara (coordinadora de nodos regionales), quienes colaboraron en la selección de los proyectos más sobresalientes.
Felicitamos especialmente al Prof. Marcos Jose Zablonsky (1º lugar, proyecto “Vozes Invisíveis”). Su iniciativa fue premiada con la participación en el 29º Seminario Internacional de Aprendizaje y Servicio Solidario, que tendrá lugar en Buenos Aires, Argentina, en 2026. ¡Será un honor recibirlo en nuestro país!
🌟 ¡El premio principal tiene destino Buenos Aires 2026! 🌟
Felicitaciones también a la PUCPR por continuar impulsando la extensión como una dimensión esencial que transforma la formación académica y la sociedad.
15/12/2025
📣 On 14 December, the Jubilee for Prisoners was celebrated as part of the Jubilee of Hope, convened by Pope Francis through the papal bull ‘Spes non confundit’: “We are called to be tangible signs of hope for so many brothers and sisters who live in conditions of hardship. I think of prisoners who, deprived of their freedom, experience every day—in addition to the harshness of imprisonment—emotional emptiness, imposed restrictions and, in many cases, disrespect.”
📌 We share with you two of our winning entries for the 2024 Uniservitate Award: ‘Unlocking Prison Boundaries: Service-Learning Psychosocial Support to Prison Officers in Kenya’, carried out by students and Professor Mary Ngina of the Department of Psychology at Tangaza University. In this project, the students provided counselling and shared mental health and wellbeing strategies to help officers cope with their difficult working environment.
➡️ Similarly, in the 2022 Award, the University of Leuven was recognised for ‘The Lived Experience of Imprisonment’, in which students and prisoners, under the coordination of professors Pieter De Witte and Zuijdwegt Geertjan, engaged in a unique experience of critical thinking and existential reflection, exploring the possibilities and limits of community moral and scientific discernment on the issue of punishment and prison systems in crisis.
04/12/2025
📣 We would like to invite you to the UNISERVITATE World Prayer, which will take place on Thursday, 11th December.
🕥 9 AM Chile / 9 AM Argentina / 2 PM Spain / 8 PM Philippines.
🙏 The prayer will be led by Universidad Católica de Chile.
⌛ It will last 20 minutes.
📌 A space to share and build community among students, educators, and all those involved in the Uniservitate program.
🔗 To participate, please use the following registration link for Thursday, 11th December: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88282902852?pwd=IfiTFGGP1bq3ECBqxJtFAen0IUJKoP.1
After registering, you will receive a link to the email address you provided with the link to participate.
25/11/2025
📌Meeting of women leaders in Catholic higher education.
📢 María Rosa Tapia, coordinator of the global Uniservitate network, participated in the “Women’s Leadership” program, an executive initiative organized by the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) in Rome from October 22 to 26. The program aims to foster a more equitable, innovative, and values-based leadership culture in Catholic universities worldwide, where women currently hold only a small proportion of the highest leadership positions.
➡️ Over four days of intense and inspiring exchange, rectors, vice-rectors, presidents, and women in other management or leadership positions linked to Catholic universities explored the integration of governance, faith, and innovation.
➡️ “It was a joy to be able to share experiences and challenges with remarkable women from different regions of the world,” said María Rosa Tapia. She added, “It was also an opportunity to be close to Pope Leo XIV and receive his blessings, and a chance for us to emphasize the importance of strengthening, through service-learning projects, the leadership of women who in many cases do not even have access to education.”
25/11/2025
📢 Service-Learning is Part of Pope Leo XIV’s Educational Proposal.
📌 In Pope Leo XIV’s view, service-learning is one of the “stars shining brightly” in the constellation of educational institutions and initiatives that must “draw new maps of hope.” This is the title of the Apostolic Letter that Leo XIV wrote to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council Declaration Gravissimum educationis, in which he recalls that education is “an act of hope,” “a labour of love that is handed down from generation to generation,” and that it is not limited to the transmission of knowledge, but must “[form] citizens capable of serving and believers capable of witnessing”
👉🏻 The document was released on 28th October by the Vatican, as part of the Jubilee of the World of Education currently taking place in Rome, in which the founder and Director of the Latin American Centre for Service-Learning (CLAYSS), Nieves Tapia, is participating, alongside the Coordinator of Uniservitate, María Rosa Tapia, and its Vice-Coordinator, Andrés Peregalli.
➡️ The Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education invited the CLAYSS-Uniservitate delegation to be part of the Global Compact on Education Committee, an initiative of Pope Francis that Pope Leo XIV has strongly re-launched in the new document.
🔗 Read more:
[ENG]
https://www.uniservitate.org/2025/11/10/service-learning-is-part-of-pope-leo-xivs-educational-proposal/
[ESP]
https://www.uniservitate.org/es/2025/11/10/el-aprendizaje-servicio-es-parte-de-la-propuesta-educativa-del-papa-leon-xiv/
20/11/2025
📣 Recordings of the VI Uniservitate Global Symposium are now available in English and Spanish on our YouTube channel!
📌 This symposium was organised by CLAYSS-UNISERVITATE and the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt on 6th and 7th November 2025.
20/11/2025
📣 ¡Ya están disponibles las grabaciones en inglés y español del VI Simposio Global Uniservitate en nuestro canal de YouTube!
📌 Este Simposio fue organizado por CLAYSS-UNISERVITATE y la Universidad Católica Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, los dias 6 y 7 de noviembre de 2025.
19/11/2025
📣 Higher education launches a manual on service-learning
📌 Higher education now has a compendium on how to develop service-learning (SSL) specifically at that level. The Latin American Center for Service-Learning (CLAYSS) has just published the first volume of a manual that brings together global experience of service-learning since the late 19th century, and in particular, that recorded over the last five years by the global network Uniservitate.
📚 The ‘Uniservitate Manual: Service-learning in Higher Education, Volume 1’ is a new work by María Nieves Tapia, founder and director of CLAYSS, with the collaboration of Alba González, Andrés Peregalli, and Alejandra Batista. It can be downloaded free of charge in English and Spanish from the Uniservitate Collection.
🔗 Read more:
[ENG]
https://www.uniservitate.org/2025/11/19/higher-education-launches-a-manual-on-service-learning/
[ESP]
https://www.uniservitate.org/es/2025/11/19/la-educacion-superior-estrena-un-manual-sobre-aprendizaje-servicio-solidario/
17/11/2025
📢 Young People from All Five Continents Shared Service-Learning Projects to Build Peace and Hope.
📌 The first global symposium for students was held virtually on 23rd October, with more than 300 students and educators from 37 countries participating. Organized by the Uniservitate hub for Central and Eastern Europe and Middle East (CEE & ME), the event offered a preview of the variety of experiences that was shared two weeks later at the VI Uniservitate Global Symposium on 6th and 7th November.
👉🏻 The Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt in Germany hosted this five-hour student meeting, moderated by a team led by Olha Mykhailyshyn.
🔗 Read more:
[ENG] https://www.uniservitate.org/2025/11/10/young-people-from-all-five-continents-shared-service-learning-projects-to-build-peace-and-hope/
[ESP] https://www.uniservitate.org/es/2025/11/10/jovenes-de-los-cinco-continentes-compartieron-proyectos-de-aprendizaje-servicio-para-construir-paz-y-esperanza/