As part of API programs, students participate in Curated Experiences designed to enhance students’ cultural immersion in their host city. One of our most beloved Curated Experience type is a category called API Gives Back, which connects students with local communities through hands-on service, building empathy, cultural understanding, and meaningful impact beyond the classroom. Here is an example from Buenos Aires:
For students in Buenos Aires, giving back isn’t a single afternoon activity; it’s a running relationship with local organizations that our on-site team has built over years in the city. From a weekend spent building a home from the ground up to ongoing partnerships with a food bank, a women’s shelter, a kindergarten, a nursing home, and a home for children in transit, students find real, hands-on ways to connect with their host community.
Building a Home with TECHO
In one of the program’s most meaningful projects to date, students partnered with TECHO, an organization similar to Habitat for Humanity, for a full weekend of construction, sleeping overnight at a local school between work days. API covered the cost of the materials for an entire home, and students helped build it alongside the family who would live there. It remains one of the few API Gives Back experiences substantial enough to meaningfully contribute toward a service-hour requirement, and it left a lasting impression on students and staff alike.
Sorting Hope: Food Bank Volunteers
Students volunteer with a local food bank, classifying and organizing donated goods so they can be distributed efficiently to families across the city, hands-on, practical work with an immediate, visible impact.
Tending the Women’s Home Garden
At a women’s shelter, students spend the day working in the garden, giving residents a cared-for outdoor space and a break from the maintenance work that often falls by the wayside.
Painting a Kindergarten Mural
Students bring color to a local kindergarten, painting the building and collaborating with staff and children on a mural, a project that lets students combine creativity with community connection.
A Fresh Coat of Care at the Nursing Home
At a local nursing home, students repaint resident rooms, brightening the space for the people who call it home.
Repairing and Restoring the Kids in Transit Home
At a home for children in transit, students take on repair and garden cleanup work, helping maintain a safe, welcoming space during a vulnerable time in these children’s lives.
Beyond a single day: service-learning coursework
For students looking to go deeper, Buenos Aires also offers two academic courses that build volunteer work directly into the curriculum:
- Urban Inequalities in Latin America – Service Learning (124 hours), part of the Multidisciplinary Studies and Community Engagement program, pairs coursework with direct fieldwork alongside NGO partners like TECHO and Fundación SES.
- Español en el Servicio a la Comunidad (60 hours), part of the Argentine and Latin American Studies program, combines Spanish-language coursework with hands-on volunteering at a local NGO.
Together with API Gives Back activities, these courses give students meaningful ways to work toward university service requirements while immersed in Buenos Aires.
