In the summer of 2023, fifteen students from various universities traveled to Ghana as part of a Service Learning experience organized by ASEC and its partners in Africa. While there, the students worked at four sites - the Infant Jesus Catholic Preparatory School, St. Elizabeth Padre Pio Rehabilitation Center, Mary Queen of Peace School, and Cornelia Connelly School of the Holy Child Jesus, where they were able to engage with the children and help with making improvements to the facilities. Among the participants was D’Ambra Galvin, a senior in Music Therapy at Marywood University. She shared her thoughts about the experience with us, in particular the ways in which she was able to utilize her interests and talents as she spent time with the local communities.
D’Ambra first learned about this program from a fellow Music Therapy major who participated in the program in 2019. Excited to experience the trip for herself, she applied to go to Kenya in 2020, but unfortunately that trip was canceled due to the global pandemic. Luckily she was still a student at Marywood when the program started up again, and she was thrilled to be able to travel to Ghana. The teachers at the schools in Ghana encouraged her to use her musical talents when she worked with the children, so D’Ambra utilized a combination of songs that were popular with those students as well as teaching them some American tunes. In speaking about her experience of using music while there, she said, “Because of knowing some of their songs, I got to incorporate and also bring some new things to them that they didn’t know, and really got to use it in a connection and an educational way.”
For D’Ambra, the experience was everything she had hoped for and more, giving her the opportunity to form connections and friendships with the people she was working with and to grow as an individual. When asked if she had any advice for future participants, she emphasized the fact that you are not there to change things but instead to learn, and that if you keep an open mind you will be in for an amazing experience. She expressed her gratitude for the warm hospitality of the African sisters who welcomed them and served as their hosts for the duration. As a final note, D’Ambra highly recommends the ASEC Service Learning trip and is glad that college students have the chance to participate in programs like these.
