Global Service Corps from its inception has placed a high priority on providing opportunities for its program participants to support and work on sustainable and appropriate community development projects. GSC initially supported other community organizations and their work, and assigned volunteers to assist these organizations. However, it soon became evident that for our volunteers to provide the best service possible to the community, GSC needed to provide specific participant orientation and training prior to volunteer assignments in the field.

As GSC developed its technical training programs, we identified specific areas of service where we could both effectively train our volunteer participants and provide an appropriate service to address specific local needs identified by communities. GSC now provides specific training of trainers (TOT) training to all service-learning volunteers. This training prepares GSC service-learning program participants to provide trainings to our host communities in specific areas.

In Tanzania, our trained volunteers provide community training in the area of HIV/AIDS education and prevention and the area of sustainable agriculture and food security. Our Tanzania training program is now expanding to also include a Telemedicine Project as part of our International Health Program. Longer-term program participants have the opportunity to assist GSC in the further development and administration of these community training programs through the Community Development Program.