When my Ambition met with Community

    “I have, by far, learned more about myself from this experience than anything else. This self-actualization allowed me greater insight into both my strengths and weaknesses.” says Robyn Bergstrom in his final Ph.D. paper “Serving to Learn; Learning to Serve: A Phenomenological Study of Service-learning.” For me, my learning was also not less than Robyn. When I started my service-learning, I had some goals in my mind, which I wanted to achieve. Those goals were as follows:

• Work with underprivileged section of our society in order to make difference in their lives.
• Communicate with all types of people without discriminating any race, gender or social class.
• Give happiness to at least one person in my different service-learning sites.
• Learning and understanding social and political issues and problems of society.  In one word “Learning by Serving”.

Now I can say that, I have accomplished these goals because when I was doing my service- learning at Snohomish Community kitchen, I could be able to serve homeless people. I washed dishes, sweep floor, took out the garbage and then when one of them gave me a hug and said “Thank you so much”, it gave me an immense pleasure I felt that I gave them happiness. While working with Food Lifeline and Senior Services of Snohomish County, I felt my strong relationship with underprivileged section of our society as my service was directly connected to underprivileged section of society. At Food Lifeline, unpacking spoiled food and packing good food for homeless people gave me satisfaction in my heart. I felt that my work will be really helpful to feed someone; same volunteering with Senior Services of Snohomish County gave me desire to work for elderly people in future. When I was volunteering at Democratic Party leader Rick Larsen’s office, I learned a lot about American politics, it was really amazed to know that leaders here already knew that who their voters are. In India, I used to work for the disadvantaged people of our society. I had also worked at some Non-profit organizations there so I already had some experience but here in US, working with different service learning places gave me good understanding and made me some experience to extensive experience in my self-assessment matrix.

I am such kind of boy who always asks that what am I able to do and contribute through service-learning, what else do I need to learn, and what other skills should I develop? Usually such kinds of students are called as Engaged students and I feel that I am one of them when it comes about Personal Development, I was already connected to others, I had some feelings to work for others but now when I saw such problems in our society, I made a big picture in my mind. I have planned to work for them in my whole life. I have planned to give a frame of my big pictures to my village where I have planned to open a Non-profit organization which will work for the beneficiary of underprivileged.  I have already decided its name and that is “MANZIL”. Manzil means “Aim”, where my aim will be to development of our youths in every walks of their life, where they will not only learn education but they would also be able to learn music, Arts and crafts like traditional painting. As India is patriarchy country, I will open some classes called MSIC (Micro Small Industries classes), where I will teach the women of my village to make different kinds of stuffs like: papad, bangles, stuffs made of khadi and many other things that they became self-dependent and will not be only dependent on the male member of their family. When, I was doing my service-learning with Community Kitchen at Snohomish, I found that how a small group of people can give happiness to lots of people, it gave me strength. “Community Kitchen is a part of a series of churches, which open doors of homeless and hungry people.” said Mike Schoonover, supervisor of Community Kitchen service about Community kitchen services.

I did my service-learning at Senior Services of Snohomish County, an organization who help those refugee and senior people and give them happiness. They had different programs for elderly people like: 1) Meals on Wheels, which offers nutritious meals for homebound older adults age 60 and older throughout Snohomish County. Delicious frozen meals that are easy to heat are delivered directly to the home each week by caring and compassionate staff and volunteers. 2) Senior Housing, where they offers a variety of affordable rental housing options for qualified seniors age 55 and older. These apartment communities, conveniently located throughout Snohomish County, are designed to enhance independent living for active seniors as well as those who need supportive services. When I was doing my service-learning there, I found a big question in my mind that why youth live their parents alone and started living independently, when their parents become old, when their parents need them most? I saw and observe this here in United States but I am sure that this is not only about USA, this is happening in whole world, many young in my country, India, are also moving to urban cities and leave their parents in villages. I had good conversation with Heather Sheppard, a librarian, regarding this question. She gave me 2-3 sources to read. I read those articles and found a different view about this topic.

"Young people are moving out of their parents' basements and sampling places and sampling careers again. After living at home for a while, young people have kind of maxed it out. They are heading to bigger, vibrant cities, predominantly, because they're looking for economic opportunity and building their social networks." says Richard Florida, an American urban theorist and professor at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. This was really amazing to read that in an article in New York Times “The extended family is making something of a comeback, thanks to delayed marriage, immigration and recession-induced job losses and foreclosures that have forced people to double-up under one roof, an analysis of Census Bureau figures has found.”  

My service-learning at different sites gave me a broader spectrum to think about community. I found lots of new issues and their solutions, working with Khalid and Mike Schoonover and Carla Schoonover for homeless and hungry people gave me an immense energy to work for my village. I would also like to work for my village people without any discrimination of cast, ethnicity, race etc. My developing consciousness always says to me that “All the people who are in world have same structure; same sense than why do we discriminate each other on the base of ethnicity and race?”

My service-learning in USA was totally different here than in India because of its culture. When I was serving food to homeless people at street with Khalid and some other friends, people were very gentle with us, they were coming in row and taking food by respectively, Same at Community Kitchen people were saying “thanks” every time, when we serve them food. Here in USA, people do their volunteer work as a Job, they come on time, and they go on time. It was really nice to see this. I found myself more dedicated and punctual for doing my service-learning here.

My actual goal is to work for my society; I want to see a well-educated society. I want to spend my whole life working for youths, because they are the future of our society, we live in, and that’s why they should be a good, intelligent, honest and brave enough to stand themselves in this world. For me, I would like to work for the rural part of India who does not have the right resources by opening avenues for their employment. Since I am from rural India I understand their difficulties and would like to write about them as I am studying journalism. In one sentence, “I will devote my life, working for my community.