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COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING

Community Service Learning: Reflective Practice Through A Community

Assessment
Student Name: Sadiq Adisa Bello
Student Number: 824-067-144
Humber College
NUR 153
Submitted to: Linda Nicol

In part of completion of my academic goals, I was fortunate to do my

community service learning hours at the Salvation Army thrift store on

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Kipling. Salvation Army thrift stores aims at recycling of household items and
making the community green. The thrift store is a place where you can find
valuable used items such as clothes, electronics, shoes, rare finds and other
household items. The mission of the organization is to share the love of
Jesus Christ, meet human needs and be a transforming influence in the
communities of the world (Salvation Army, (n.d)). My experience at the thrift
store was a great one as I was privilege to engage myself in serving and
helping the employees of the organization.

The daily activities include

cleaning the store, removal of old clothes and shoes, throwing out garbage
and sorting out metals from electronics.

All of which includes getting to

interact with employees, customers which consist of mostly older adults,

collectors and low income earners.
My experience at the thrift store gave me a better outlook of life; it opened
my ideology about how life is not easy as it seems sometimes. I developed
more on my empathetic behavior and became altruistic in dealing and
communicating with people.

I am more open to accommodating other

peoples ideas and notion about matters relating to culture beliefs and
values. At first the learning hours seem uninteresting and the daily activities
seemed monotonous and boring but I was able to develop a liking for the
activities by concentrating on helping the employees and making use of
every opportunity to communicate with people around me. The community
service learning hours has improved my level of patience and how to
effectively manage my emotions when relating with other volunteers at the

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agency. Some of the volunteers at the agency are serving court orders and I
got to relate with them to determine what they could have done better to
avoid coming back there for the same offence.

The physical activities I did

at the agency include creating Gaylord boxes and making use of the pump
truck to move heavy loads. I had no previous knowledge about the use of the
pump truck but the principle about it use is based on safety and time
management. I was able to practice safe weight lifting techniques to avoid
back injuries which can be channelled towards safe transfer of patients in my
nursing career.
My limitation is communicating effectively and efficiently, sometimes my
physical behavior doesnt match my expression. Also, I impose personal
judgement on matters that are contradictory to my beliefs and values which
jeopardises effective communication. I understand that communication
involves various aspects of our life and non-verbal communication often
contributes to the efficiency of communication relationship.
The determinants of health that relates to clients in my agency are
education, income and social status. Income is a major social determinant of
health as health is wealth. Most of the clients who patronize the thrift store
are low income earners who salvage on used household items to enhance
their living conditions. The availability of wealth or income affords people
with better living conditions, good health care and better education resource
which reduce the need for seeking medical attention. Poverty poses a great

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COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING

deal of stress on an individual physical, mental and emotional well-being

poverty exerts its effect on health through lack of material resources that
support health, through higher levels of psycho-social stress, and through
health-threatening behaviors to cope with limited resources and stress
(Potter & Perry, 2014, p. 7). I choose this determinant of health because it
boils down to the root cause of most health care deficit or problems being
addressed in the hospitals. The availability of resources to better life will
improve healthy life styles and living conditions being exhibited by the
individual In addition to the direct effect of being poor, an individuals
health can be compromised by living in neighbourhoods with high
concentrations of unemployment, poor housing, a poor environment and
limited access to services (C.N.A., 2005,p.2) . The social economic gap
between the rich and the poor is alarming which pose threat to both parties
in the society and if this economic difference is not curtailed the
consequences will be suffered by both parties. Some of the consequences
being seen today are increase in crime rate, alcohol and drug abuse which
are ways by which individuals resort to managing stressful conditions.
Populations lacking socioeconomic and environmental resources have a
higher exposure to risk factors such as violence, malnutrition, and
environmental toxins. This increases the populations relative risk for poor
health. Declining health status further depletes resources continuing the
cycle of increased risk and decreased health status (Lathrop, 2013 p. 42).

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COMMUNITY SERVICE LEARNING

Education also poses a major effect on the determinants of health. Having

an education could increase ones chance of securing a job and staying out of
poverty. Well educated individuals are better at managing healthy lifestyles
and adhering to life style changes when confronted with a terminal illness.
Nurses are supposed to be aware of the various social determinants of health
and equally know how these determinants affect clients in making good
health choices Full understanding of the social determinants of health and
the effect on health outcomes should be incorporated into all levels of
nursing education (Mahony & Jones, 2013 p.282)
Some of the community organization that support client with the mentioned
determinants of health are the Humber career centre which helps in
providing jobs opportunities and resume make over for individuals to secure
better employments or get employment. The Humber career centre is
located in all Humber college campuses and operates whenever the college
is open. The time of operation is 9am- 5pm and parking space availability at
several Lots in front of the campus. This community service helps individuals
to secure employment which provides a source of income for them to make
healthy choices and staying out of poverty.
Also, community organization such as the WoodGreen community services
which is a charity organization that provides enlightenment to the public
through

advanced

education

by

providing

courses,

seminars

and

employment opportunities. Their services include provision of transport

services for seniors and improving the quality of life privilege Torontonians.

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WoodGreen community service is located on 815, Danforth Avenue, suite

100, Toronto, Ontario M4J 1L2. They organize programs such as WoodGreen
Financial wellness clinic which is free to the public and involves a one-on-one
interaction with clients to discuss how to manage wealth (WoodGreen
Financial wellness clinic, 2015). This program run on selected Saturdays of
winter-spring and the schedule can be viewed on www.WoodGreen.org .
In conclusion, I gave highlights on my experience at the Salvation Army and
how the activities I engaged in will be channelled towards my nursing career.
I discussed about two social determinants of health relating to a client in the
organization. I talked about education and income & social status. Also, I
provided two other community organization such as the Humber Career
centre and WoodGreen community services which provide services to
address the social determinant of health discussed.

REFERENCES
Canadian Nurses Association. (CNA). (2005). Social determinants of health
and nursing: A

summary of

http://www.cna-aiic.ca/en/

the issues. Retrieved from:

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Lathrop B. (2013). Nursing Leadership in Addressing the Social

Determinants of Health.
Policy Politics, and Nursing Practice, vol 14 (1), pp. 41-47.
doi: 10.1177/1527154413489887
Mahony D., Jones E.J.(2013). Social Determinants of Health in Nursing
Education, Research, and Health Policy. Nursing Science Quarterly, 26
(3) , pp. 280-284.
doi: 10.1177/0894318413489186
Potter,P., Perry, A.G. (2014). In Ross-kerr, J., Wood, M., Astle, B., &
Duggleby, W. (Eds),
Canadian fundamentals for nursing. (5th ed). Toronto: Mosby
Salvation Army (n.d.).

Retrieved from http://www.thriftstore.ca/central-

ontario/our-mission-vision-and-history
WoodGreen (2015). Retrieved from
http://www.woodgreen.org/WoodGreenDebtManagementClinic.aspx