I've been working on filling out my application for Lutheran Volunteer Corps (LVC) most of today, and I really enjoyed answering some of the "essay questions". Some made me think quite a bit about what I believe and what I'm passionate about. I've also realized that in applying to LVC and other year-long volunteer internships, I will (hopefully) get to spend a whole year working with issues I am and will be come passionate about, challenging my beliefs, and learning to live out God's call to love one another in a very different setting than what I'm used to.
The following is my unabridged answer to an application question.
This was actually all one question, I just split it up when composing my answer for the sake of organization. (I had to pare it down quite a bit when I actually put it in the application because I exceeded the 400 approximate word limit by about 400 words...)
What social injustice are you passionate about and why?
Though I have definite passion for the
issues of hunger and homelessness/affordable housing, I am choosing a less
traditional social injustice that deals more with my passion for teaching and
providing people with hope for their future.
I believe that every person has the ability and is entitled to the
opportunity to succeed (be it in education, the workforce, personal life, etc.). I see it as an injustice that the chance to
succeed is taken from people, and they are instead brought down, held back, and
find themselves hopeless and giving up.
Coming from my background of teaching, I have seen this first hand in some
of the students I have worked with. I have
also seen this in people of all ages whom I have encountered on various service
trip experiences. It pains me to see people
give up on their lives, dreams, hopes, and future just because some person or
circumstance makes them believe they can’t succeed.
In your opinion, why does this social injustice exist, and
who contributes to/perpetuates this injustice?
I believe this social injustice
exists because of stereotypes, close-mindedness, and the making of
assumptions. It is created and perpetuated
by people, organizations, and institutions who assume that because of someone’s
race, ethnicity, language, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, cognitive
ability, age, skill level, or any other characteristic that he or she cannot succeed
in school, the workplace, or other aspects of life.
How has interacting with people from ethnic, racial, or
socioeconomic backgrounds different from your own impacted your understanding
of this social injustice, if at all?
In my many experiences on mission
and service trips, I have encountered many people facing hopelessness. I have helped distribute food to those
experiencing homeless and poverty and seen how downtrodden they can be, as well
as how something as simple as receiving food can absolutely brighten their day.
I have eaten lunch at a soup kitchen
alongside people for whom that may have been the only meal they got that day;
this made me realize how fortunate I am to eat three meals a day with snacks in
between (and caused me to make sure I ate everything on my plate at that
meal). I have helped repair the home of
a family struggling to help their autistic son while also handling a blended
family and low financial situation; through something as simple as giving their
house a facelift and putting a tire swing up for their son, the work crew I was
on was able to give the family hope and peace of mind. The situation that struck me the most about
this injustice was when I worked with a diverse and bilingual class of fifth
grade students at an elementary school in Denver, CO, last May. Though they had so much potential and life
ahead of them, the way they acted showed me that at the age of about 10 years
old, many of them had already given up on their futures. This was likely because of socioeconomic
hardships, teachers and other adults who had may have had little faith in their
behavior and academic ability, and the idea that anyone in their life situation
would never amount to anything in life.
It is situations that I have experienced like these that give me the
drive to work toward eradicating this social injustice.
What steps have you taken to bring about change regarding
this social injustice? How do you plan to continue this work in LVC?
Though I do not believe that the issue of the
hope of success being taken from people can ever be completely stopped, I
believe that it is still incredibly valuable to help people combat this problem
on an individual level. My Christian
faith ties very much into how I bring about change in this area; I am not the
type who tries to force my religion and beliefs on others, but because I
believe that every person is a treasured child of God, I live out the call to
love one another. I try to do this
through my work on service trips, making personal connections with those whom I
serve and letting them know through my words and actions that I genuinely care
about them. At Bible camp, I have worked
in many ways to let children and adults alike know that God loves them and they
have unique gifts and talents that can be used for good. When working with students in public schools,
I have fought this injustice by creating a positive classroom environment, letting
students know that I believe in them, and creating lessons and activities in which
they can be successful. In any LVC
placement, I would be able to combat the injustice of hopelessness every day in
the volunteer work that I do with love and with the people I work with and
serve who I firmly believe have inordinate amounts of potential.
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