Facilitating assets-based development in rural communities through service-learning

By integrating a learning experience with community organizations, service-learning (SL) can be considered a tool to facilitate rural communities’ development, acting as a resource mobilizer. This study presents a participatory process based on the assets-based approach for community development approach. Six local organizations and 16 university students in three Italian rural communities were engaged to assess local resources and co-construct rural SL (RSL) projects. A two-phase rural participative process was developed and evaluated using qualitative instruments, such as focus groups and students’ reflexive journals. Results indicated that rural communities uncovered a set of material and intangible inner assets to develop. Indeed, they identified internal (and potentially external) resources that could effectively bring some insights to rural challenges. Moreover, community members experienced new paths through SL to count on their internal assets through effective collaboration with university students. The collaboration between students (and university) and community organizations delivered new local and rural development opportunities while supporting the partnership for RSL. Students experienced themselves as potential agents of change, enhancing their psychosocial resources and competencies, and strengthening rural development. The result’s implications involve the development of rural policies, including effective participation of rural communities (and organizations) and regarding different dimensions of development, like economic or psychosocial development.