We Must Keep Stepping

“To get through the hardest journey we need only to take one step at a time but we must keep stepping.” --Chinese Proverb

When I was asked to describe my “service journey” I began to think of how I could show that  have grown in the past four years in my ideas of what it means to be engaged. Break Away, a national non-profit that works with collegiate alternative breaks, shows this transition through the “active citizenship continuum.”  They describe that this journey begins with a person beginning a member of society, who then volunteers, becomes aware of social issues associated with volunteer-- “conscientious citizen,” and finally who serves as an “active citizen” in the community.

An active citizen is a person who consciously incorporates the factors and issues of the community into their personal decisions.  In this project, I have chosen to represent the active citizenship continuum through quotes that reflect each period of my life.  For my journey, the four areas will represent: volunteer, conscientious citizen, active citizen present, and active citizen future.

My place on this continuum is constantly changing... When I talk about health care inequality, I feel as through I am an active member of this issue, working to create social change.  However, if you put me in a soup kitchen, and watch me interact with people who are homeless, you’ll find that I’m somewhere in the gray area between volunteer and conscientious citizen.  My message is simple:

We are constantly learning, growing and changing in our ideas of community service.  Our interactions with community members and peers at the college will push our though process pas the boundaries of conventional volunteerism, if we allow ourselves to be open to these experiences.  Ultimately, it does not matter where we are on our journey.  What matters is that we are constantly aware, that we chose an issue to be our soap box, and that within hat issue we are working towards creating equality, change, and social justice.  Keep on stepping.

Volunteer
“We make a living by what we get.  We make a life by what we give.” --Sir Winston Churchill

Throughout my years in high school, I volunteered at  variety of places in my free time.  I helped serve dinner at my Grandmother’s assisted living home, taught 1st and 2nd grade Sunday School at my church, and tutored local elementary school students through my National Honor Society Chapter.  My devotion to volunteering was the result of my upbringing-- the belief that our family has been blessed and we must help others.  However, often I just volunteered because I has too... because I felt the obligation to give back and because my school required 50 volunteer hours each year.  After helping serve meals or teaching a lesson on Noah’s ark I felt great about giving something to others.  Yet, my hours spent had no distant connection or meaning beyond the satisfying feeling of volunteering.

Conscientious Citizen
“It’s a journey. I’m a wandering soul.  speak up on the unspoken and pour out the timeless suffering and lift up on the curtain.”-- Motivate by Matisyahu

On my first service trip to Central America with William and Mary Medical Relief, my concept of helping others  was challenged.  I went to Belize with the intention that I would be giving the community members medical assistance, and that from this experience I would learn to become a better, more sympathetic doctor.  I was completely wrong.  I witnessed the difference that existed in privilege.  I felt that I had no right to be entering a foreign community, where I was a) not of the same culture of even ethnicity b) certainly not an authority on medicine and c) being thanked by the community for my help, when in reality I was receiving more than anything I could ever give.

Every member of my group felt this way.  We were frustrated when we returned to William and Mary.  We wished that we could do more.  we felt that returning to campus forced us to be separated from the issue of health care inequality and the people of Belize.  We had trouble accepting that fate had dealt us a better hand-- one with an access to education, running water, and shoes.
I felt lost.  I felt helpless as a student without a medical degree.  I felt like there was no way to address this issue from Williamsburg.

For me the curtain had been lifted.  I was able to connect volunteering to fight problems in health care to the greater issues of education, poverty, and social justice, but I was still  wandering soul.

Active Citizen
“Differences in the privilege are not made less by not engaging in service.”

It is hard to say when I first made this connection, but there was a point during my sophomore year when I realized that I could not become overwhelmed by the questions and emotions associated with how privilege affects service.  Instead, I finally understood no matter what I must take action.  There were ways to continue my service back in Williamsburg, and in order to fight health car inequality, I had to educate myself on public policy, epidemiolgy, and continue to work towards receiving my medical degree.  With the knowledge that education provides, we are better able to understand the room of the issue, to listen to the concerns in the community, and to eventually become a holistic servant that makes decisions that will better the community as a whole.

Through educating myself, working in local free health clinics, and serving on domestic service trips, I discovered how I could intwine active citizenship into my daily life.  I shifted my academic focus to public health.  I talked with my peers about my experiences and prevalent social issues plaguing the world.  I strived to be conscientious of my carbon footprint, the food i purchased, an the terminology I used in every day speech.  

For me, active citizenship is the reason why I believe in my involvement as a “leader in service” is so important.  Many former William & Mary students helped me along the active citizenship continuum.  By my work as a leader in the Branch Out National program I am able to do the same.  As a leader, you are able to provide the groundwork for others to make their own decisions on how they will be engaged in society.  Nothing in collage has made me happier than to see my peers make this realized that difference in privilege are NOTE MADE LESS BY NOT ENGAGING in service.  

Future Engagement
“Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary.  What we need is to love without getting tired.”  --Mother Teresa

During the OCES Stand-Up Campaign, Mo Torebinejad ’10 spoke of love being the core of service.  This idea is something that really resonates with where I am right now in my concept of service and community engagement.  In order to be engaged in community we must be educated in the issues, work together to create social change, and above all love each other as if we were family.  Reaching equality within any issue first starts from acknowledging that you share a common bond with every human being.  If fate was different, I could have easily been born in the dumpster community in Nicaragua, jobless, poor, depending on selling recycled cans for my next meal.  Underneath everything, we are human.  We must acknowledge this, and we must live this in order to truly be servants in the community

I will never be a Mother Teresa, but I can strive in my daily life to LOVE WITHOUT GETTING TIRED.  Next year I will work in the field of community health with AmeriCorps.  After that, hopefully medical school and a masters in public health.  No matter what, I will still be continuing to learn and grow in service, striving to keep love and equality at the center of this journey.