My Summer of Service

Inspired Read: No More Heroes: Grassroots Challenges to the Savior Mentality by Jordan Flaherty

This summer I had the opportunity to volunteer with RAICES. RAICES is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that fights on the behalf of immigrants within the legal system to fortify immigrant rights. As an organization, they are in constant pursuit of achieving their mission and vision by providing legal services, bond assistance, and social programs to help each client. I was split into a group with Julia working on creating new training modules for volunteers. Working with them this semester helped provide more understanding of the immigrant experience from another perspective. My parents immigrated from this country and have received their citizenship so I can easily place myself in the shoes of some of these families. It was a long battle and experiencing that firsthand as a child will definitely help my experience working with RAICES. My internship at the District Attorney’s Office also helped with the work I was doing with RAICES. There is a lot of work within the legal system and I get to work in both immigration and criminal law. Through my time here with RAICES I have learned new lessons and gained new viewpoints that I plan on applying in my future.

I am very proud of the research we did and the ending product. We created new training modules on Prezi for new translator and interpreter volunteers. I listened to hours of podcasts and read a lot of articles to make sure I was knowledgeable about what I was talking about. My partner, Julia, and I tried to use our experience as students to shape how we created our training modules. We tried to take all the information into a digestible format. I am proud of what we created and hope that RAICES uses that to present to their new volunteers. Immigration was such a complex topic and the policy surrounding it is even more complex. Taking more time to learn about it made the work put into our project more intentional. We listened to podcasts and read articles totaling over 19 hours of work. Listening to experts on policy, RAICES, and personal experiences added a human element that was missing from our virtual individual work.

I learned a lot from working in a group like this. We all were either Honors students or people who thrive in academic settings. We all cared equally about our grades and how much effort we put into them. I would normally take control and steer the group to complete our work. But in this case, I was able to relax and not be in charge. I want to carry this dynamic into other groups I work with. Giving other people the opportunity to lead and see where they want to go with our projects. Being in control places a lot of pressure on me and can affect how I interact with other members of the group. Knowing that other people care just as much and will complete their work on time is calming. I can relax and know that our work will be fine.

I define service as, the action of helping other people, groups, and organizations with a focus on being concerned with their needs and wishes instead of your own. This definition came from what I have gathered from the topics discussed in class. The latter half of my definition adds more specificity and context to the definition of service. To me, service and volunteering are two completely different things with different intentions. Hence why I wanted their definitions to be very different.

Service: the act/action of helping other people, groups, and organizations with a focus on being concerned with their needs and wishes instead of your own

My readings this summer discussed the negative impacts of noncritical volunteerism. Specifically, two stood out to me and forced me to reflect on my mindset and work. Why Service Learning is Bad by John Eby discussed so many different topics that transformed my viewpoints on service learning. Service-learning emphasizes the fact that there is a deficiency within a community that requires people from outside the community to provide. Although that completely places the blame on the community for not having the resources necessary to provide for themselves. It can become easy to devalue helping others when you are not directly faced with the problems of that community. Most service-learning programs do not discuss the social structures that cause a need in a community. It makes the entire process simplistic. In addition, the reading, No More Heroes by Flaherty helped me view how I have used my seat of privilege to unintentionally harm others that I intended to help. The author challenges the idea of savior mentality and provides an analysis of the systemic structures that uphold it. Savior mentalities have been the center of volunteerism which ties into the previous point of decentering the community in need.

Through my readings and discussions, I have learned that we must put impact over intent. In most cases, we never have the intention to harm others but what we say or do can have an opposite effect. Our intentions and thoughts can be divided between ourselves and the pure thought of helping others which can taint our service. When we focus solely on the impact we leave, it centers our service on other people. Their best intentions and needs are considered which leaves a bigger impact on that community and improves the success of the service. As someone who always wants to help others but hates hard labor, I walk a thin line on volunteerism. In situations where I know I will be doing something I do not like, I always try to find the lesson and good being taught for me. It turns my service into a personal lesson where I require it to determine the quality and validity of my service and labor. Moving forward, I do not think I will put my self situations where my work will be done begrudgingly. It does not help either party and affects the quality of my work. Instead, I will be donating money, resources, and time towards grassroots organizations that focus on communities and problems that I care about. First, I will need to find time and find good organizations unlike some of the ones we discussed in class. Making sure their mission and vision align with their service and press. Also checking how their funds are allocated and making sure the money I give them is spent and not pocketed for personal gains and payroll. Lastly, I want to choose organizations that create sustainable and lasting effects. Again focusing on impact over intent.

Impact over Intent

Also, I want to stay away from groups that create a dependency on their services. The goal for all nonprofits should be to help everyone until they are no longer needed. Organizations that perpetuate the notion that underprivileged communities or countries need their help are not in the business of creating sustainable solutions. It is neocolonialism and it prevents people within that community from advancing without the help of a “superior” western power. Pastran in her paper, “Volunteer Tourism: A Postcolonial Approach” discussed how voluntourism is often marketed as mutually beneficial but voluntourism profits from the neocolonial relationships embedded in their relationships with other countries. This paper from USURJ goes into detail about how these relationships are exploited and what organizations can do to transform them.

Overall, this summer met my expectations and helped me understand more about volunteerism and the role it plays in academia. I was provided new viewpoints and opinions from my peers that have helped define my summer as one full of knowledge and new experiences. My main goal was to have adaptability as a learning outcome and I was not prepared for it but I am more than grateful.

p.s. I can make a separate post about all the podcasts I listened to! Let me know if you are interested :)

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Helpful Links:

RAICES: https://www.raicestexas.org/

Immigration in America: https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/topics/immigration-reform

No More Heroes: https://jordanflaherty.org/saviors/

Volunteer Tourism: https://usurj.journals-test.usask.ca/article/view/30