Reflect on Dr. Kala Stroup's talk, the Ivan Illich article, and the introduction to social justice and privilege. What did you learn from these and how do you envision applying what you learned during your respective Alternative Breaks?
Blog posts must be 200-400 words, proofread, and void of common grammatical errors.
Because I posted this prompt late in the game, your blog posts for this specific one is due on Sunday, April 27th at 5:00pm.
Please email albreaks@ku.edu if you have any questions!
First off, I just want to say that Dr. Kala Stroup has great fashion sense and awesome shoes.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, she really knows non-profits. Amidst her statistical rainstorm, I learned that non-profits are the 2nd largest work force in America. This fact stood out to me most because it was so surprising. I had very limited experience with non-profits before walking into class last Thursday. I only knew that what set them apart from regular businesses was their lack of shareholders. From Kala, I learned that they are also mission (not profit) driven, more flexible and independent, and that 50% of the environmental work field consist of non-profits. I’m excited to be a part of the non-profit volunteer population this summer at Homeboy, where I can dedicate my time, talent, and resources to better the lives of others.
While I was inspired by Kala’s talk, I was a bit anxious from what Ivan Illich had to say. “I am here to entreat you to use your money, your status and your education to travel in Latin America. Come to look, come to climb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But do not come to help.” That’s a pretty harsh statement. As someone who feels good after giving my time to help others, I was initially offended by Illich’s careless speech. Why be so harsh with people who are only trying to help? Hadn’t he ever heard the saying, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”?
But after the discussions in class, I realized, who are we to decide who needs help? Maybe we don’t need to be the hand feeding them in the first place. While I still think his delivery was too reprimanding, Illich did make some interesting points. As Americans with a high standard of living, it is easy to see less privileged countries as weak and in need of our help. Instead of imposing our way of life on other cultures, we should wait for them to ask for help and direction as to what they need from us. Without properly preparing ourselves, we will cause more harm than good.
In regards to our alternative break, I think it is important that we are staying local and not traveling outside of the USA. While Kansas is definitely different from California, it is less of a culture change than traveling to Latin America. However, it is still important to understand that not everyone lives similarly to me and I need to be considerate to that.
Volunteering -- it’s what America seems to run on.
ReplyDeleteAs an international student, one of the things I noticed coming to America is the huge volunteering mentality. From little things like helping around their community to championing for social causes, people love to volunteer. Volunteerism is something I grew to love in America. It makes sense that volunteering and non-profit work have become an integral part of America and its economy as Dr. Stroup said. However, reading Ivan Illich’s speech, I realized we need to carefully re-examine this volunteer mentality and its impact, especially if this is imposed on others of different minds and culture.
Many Americans go abroad to volunteer in less-developed countries, but as Illich pointed out in his speech, sometimes their impact on the communities they serve is dubious. Some go volunteer abroad with a “vacation mentality”, using service as a chance to see the world. Others go, excited to help, but end up disrupting the community by pushing “solutions” that conflict with the community’s values and culture. I think often times, myself included, our thought stops at the excitement to volunteer, to “do good” and contribute to society; fulfilling our desire to serve our cause is enough of a reason to get us volunteering. However, to really make the positive impact we hope for, we need to go beyond the volunteerism mentality or the intention to do good that Illich talks about. We need to really ask ourselves what we are going to do and whether that can make meaningful impact for the cause that we supposedly are championing. It’s not just when we are volunteering in a different culture. Wherever we hope to volunteer - whether it’s local, national, or international - we need to ask ourselves, are we in a position to really help or are we just going to disrupt the way things are without really making a change? Is our contribution something that is positive and actually desired by those we are trying to help? It’s a question that I’m asking myself as I prepare for the Alternative Break.
First off, Dr. Kala Stroup’s talk truly reflected who I am as a volunteer. Everything she said made me feel like I did my time right as a volunteer when I grew up. Although I didn’t know that volunteering is the 2nd largest work force in America, it made me feel good knowing that putting forth my time to someone else was worth it.
ReplyDeleteMoving onto the Ivan Illich article, let me tell you how I felt while reading it. First, I felt angry and upset. Who was this guy to go after and in between the lines say “you better not volunteer?” I remember just closing the article page on my computer in an uproar over what he said. After getting over my immature behavior, and as a journalist, I opened my mind back up again to hear and see what he really has to say.
Maybe he was right. Maybe when we do volunteer, we don’t really go to help. We just go and volunteer our time “helping” them with their ways. We don’t “help” them with ours. Like what Leah said, going to a different state has little culture change than leaving U.S. soil.
I also remember during our discussion sessions about the article. Someone in my group mentioned that if we were to go visit a friend’s house to help them re-paint the deck, we wouldn’t go and force them our ways. We’d go, learn how they re-paint the deck and just help them along with it. It is impolite to go up to someone and try to force our own way and make them realize their way isn’t the best.
I think applying the skills of “volunteering” isn’t exactly a robot method. I think “volunteering” means is giving up your time and doing something that is out of your comfort zone. People love giving their time to someone/something else but that someone/something else may not fit their lifestyle. I grew up volunteering for the environment whether that’s cleaning up a park, cleaning up a river…but not once have I ever volunteer at an aquatic garden. Maybe the techniques will be the same, maybe not.
Dr. Kala Stroup’s talk I found very enlightening. I thought I generally understood the non-profit sector because I knew that these organizations strove to “break even” with their projects, rather than making as much profit as possible. I also figured they were more mission-based because they only sought the funds to complete their goal, not fill their pockets. However, I had no idea how large and influential the sector is. Her talk really inspired me to investigate more into non-profit careers.
ReplyDeleteIn contrast, Ivan Illich’s article struck a chord with me. I felt it had brought to light notions I had had in my head all along. Once I began thinking about it, I realized I had heard these arguments in books and politics all over the place.
To start with, my sophomore English class read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The main character lives in Africa and has multiple wives. He lives with his village in thatched-roof huts and some of their rituals sound appalling to an American reader. However, when a white missionary walks into their village to teach them about Christianity, the main character loses the fight to defend his culture and commits suicide.
I also remembered that President James Monroe had enacted the Monroe Doctrine to prevent further European colonization in the Americas. Later, Teddy Roosevelt added his corollary, stating that anytime a European country provoked Latin America, the United States would intervene. This policy of interventionism received quite a bit of backlash, and Franklin Roosevelt eventually retracted it.
I think this article could serve as a lesson in many aspects of foreign policy. Maybe we shouldn’t stick our noses in everyone else’s business when we have the slightest bit of interest in that country. When we try and impose our system of democracy somewhere it doesn’t belong, we usually end up doing much more harm than good. Maybe we should use our nonprofit sector to go in and listen to what other people want and need before we march into their territory.
Dr. Kala Stroup’s talk was a great way to start the class after reading the depressing article by Ivan Illich. It was reassuring to hear that philanthropic work is a positive thing. I was surprised to find out that the non-profit sector is the second largest work force in the U.S. I had never realized the major contributions that this sector had provided for not only our citizens, but for economy. The vast range that non-profits encompasses was also very enlightening to me, I generalized non-profits to church groups mainly or directly dealing with less economically fortunate individuals and not the environment/ animal sanctuaries.
ReplyDeleteThen the transition and discussion on Ivan Illich’s article was very interesting. It was reassuring that I was not the only one who was a little offended by the content of the article and found it off putting when in discussion with my group. I thought that Illich completely disregarded the fact that many individuals when going on a mission/volunteer trip do not go into it thinking that they are going to change lives. I think that many go into it just wanting to learn and experience a new culture and an added bonus would be if they are able to impact someone’s life for the positive. Personally for me, when I am to go on my alternative break to Homeboy Industries, I was never expecting to go in and push my ideologies on individuals who have grown up and experienced many things that I am not accustom to and never really will be. I do think that the article brings up the great point of how Americans sometimes go into different parts of the world think they need fixed. Unless someone is asking for assistance would should never assume they should want it because their way of living is different than ours.
I thought that this article did a great job in facilitating the conversation of how to appropriately interact with individuals and groups on volunteer trips. I think that it was absolutely necessary to talk about how we need to always be conscious of certain privileges that many of us have, and how not to make someone ever feel belittled by this. I thought that the article did bring up the great point of what may be the “right” way to fix a problem in one area of the country may not be the “right” way in another, and that is absolutely okay.