Pre-Service

I am one of those people who are very passionate about service work. I loved volunteering at home and it pains me to say that I haven't been able to do as much since I've been away at school. Due to this, I am really excited to work with the refugees at World Relief. My main hope is that I can be of service to the family that I will be helping and that we both learn something from each other. I want to make a connection with them so that they feel like they aren’t just in America because their country doesn’t want them. They should feel like they belong here and I want to contribute to that.

I don’t have many assumptions for this service learning experience because I haven’t really done anything like this before, but I can assume that the family will be really nice and very open to do things with me and the girls in my group. I think that because they are refugees and they have had to deal with a lot of adversities in their life and they might be a little wary at first. But I am sure they are in a stage where they are comfortable with volunteers now and hopefully will be open to learn things about American culture.

As Kelly said in her presentation they are mainly serving people from Bhutan, Burma, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, and Iraq. I know a little bit more about Cuba because I learned in high school about their political and economic issues and I did take four years of Spanish (even though that’s not Cuban), so I feel like I can relate more to that population. However, the refugees coming from Bhutan, Burma, and the Democratic Republic of Congo I don’t know as much about. I know that in Iraq they were having a lot of problems which is obviously why we had troops there, but I don’t know much about why the people were forced to leave their country. I am ashamed to say that I don’t know more because I really feel like I should. I think it’s important to know what is going on outside the U.S. so that I can help more. Also, I can assume that this population of people is very appreciative of America because we have helped them start a new life where they don’t have to worry every second of every day if it’s going to be their last.

Like I said before, I absolutely love helping people. It is one passion of mine that I am very proud of and I don’t mind bragging about a little. To me this experience will be life changing. Not only is it important to learn about other cultures, but it’s important to experience them in real life too. I am really interested to see how these people have adapted to life here in America and I admire them for making the most of what they’ve had to deal with. I really do think that this project will open my eyes to a whole other world that I haven’t had the chance to experience before.