Home > Initiatives > Consulting Corps > 1. Current or past roles > Maria Desangles
Consultant: Maria Desangles
| Name: | Maria Desangles |
| Title: | Director of Service-Learning |
| Organization: | Hope CommUnity Center |
| Phone: | (954) 651-1853 |
| Fax: | (407) 464-0854 |
| Email: | mariadesangles [a] hcc-offm.org |
| Address: | 1016 N. Park Avenue Apopka , |
Brief Biography:
Maria Desangles is the Service-Learning Director for the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka, FL. The Center is dedicated to empowerment of Central Florida’s immigrant and working poor communities through Education, Advocacy and Spiritual Growth. “I have been working at the Center and in the community for two years as a Notre Dame Americorps member. These two years of service and hands-on experience have really equipped me with the tools to find meaning and
purpose for the rest of my life,” says Ms. Desangles. Maria has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Central Florida and is currently enrolled in a master degree program for Community and Social Change at the University of
Miami. As an immigrant herself from the Dominican Republic, Maria has a deep passion for and commitment to service, civic engagement and social justice.
Areas of Expertise
1. Current or Past Roles
2. Types of Consulting
- Discussion / dialogue facilitation
- Speeches
- Interactive presentations
3. Types of civic and community engagement
- Engagement integrated in first-year programs
- Alternative spring breaks
- Community-based work-study
- Community organizing
- Research about civic and community engagement
- Social entrepreneurship
- Service-learning or community-based learning courses
- Engagement integrated in graduate programs
- Deliberative dialogues
- Political engagement
- Consulting Corps Campus-community partnerships
- Community-based participatory research / engaged scholarship
4. Related knowledge
- Facilitation techniques
- Communications/telling our stories effectively
- Reflection
- Intercultural knowledge / diversity
- Coordination of engagement programs/centers
- Asset-based community development
- Assessment and evaluation methods
- Partnership development
5. Public issues addressed through engagement
- Immigration / migration
- Community / economic development
- International / global citizenship issues
- Environment
- Civil rights / human rights
- Poverty
6. Types of campuses
- Private
- Research university
- Hispanic serving
- Two-year
- Land-grant
- Urban
- Public
- Liberal arts
- Tribal
- Religiously affiliated
- Historically black
- Small town or suburban
- Four-year
- Technical
- Rural
7. Academic areas
- Technical fields
- Consulting Corps Education
- General education
- Natural sciences
- Humanities
- Consulting Corps Business / management
- Interdisciplinary programs
- Health professions
- Consulting Corps Engineering
- Social sciences
- Law and public policy
- Arts and design
I have always had a drive to serve others and work for the common good. But I never fully realized that I could go beyond volunteerism--that my opinion and hard work could influence policy decisions. My views changed when I sat in the office of one of my legislators in Washington, DC.
-Amanda Coffin, University of Maine at Farmington, Campus Compact student leader