Pre-Trip Reflections on Service

dbaum — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:54:00 GMT

Hi everyone!

Welcome to our blog! Technology willing, we’ll be posting updates throughout our trip to work with Habitat for Humanity in Kawama, Zambia, alongside Elon University's Periclean Scholars Class of 2009. We could not be more thrilled about this experience or excited about the chance to share it with you here!

To start off the blog, I want to share a reflection on service from Reverend Sam Wells, Dean of the Duke University Chapel, which I found particularly interesting. Wells identifies three broad ways for a person to try and fix any of the world’s many wrongs. They are:

1. Working for: This is the conventional, and least effective, model of social action: doing for someone what they cannot do for themselves. While this validates the skills of the helper, whose good intentions lead to a direct action that benefits another, it belittles the talents of the helped and does nothing to empower them to help themselves. This is the proverbial giving a person a fish and feeding them for a day. You leave feeling good about yourself, yet don’t take the time to teach that person to fish for the future, much less understand whether they really wanted or needed a fish at all.

2. Working with: This improves on the “working for” model, by allowing those you intend to help to set the agenda for what needs to be done and how the group will reach that goal. For example, a soup kitchen under this model requires the people served to set the menu, decorate the dining room and learn to do the cooking themselves. When the helpers come to the table as equals—subordinates even—to the helped, those in need become empowered with new skills and feelings of self-worth. This means that the whole community, not just the benevolent helper, can smile in the self-satisfaction of having worked for the greater good.

3. Being with: Wells’ ideal model consists of enjoying the company of those who need our help and experiencing the challenges they face. Rather than demanding direct outcomes, we should seek to value each person for who they are and reach out to connect with them on a deeply human level. As both the privileged and the needy crave a sense of belonging and connection with others, this model sees both the helper and the helped as total equals with the exact same needs and opportunity to gain from the other. When we take the time to love and understand those different from us, in place, race or circumstance, the community that will emerge will be better prepared to affect long-lasting change that will benefit us all.

I share this with you to set the tone for this blog as a reflection on global service and an opportunity to share our experiences with the people of Zambia. I expect that you won’t see too many posts on how many houses we build, since that fits into the “working for” model. We could build 1,000 houses and still not fix the issues facing that community, which are certainly more complex and more extensive. Additionally, you can rest assured that a group of risk managers, students and professors do not possess such building skills that the Zambians need us to come help them with construction. Instead, working with Habitat Zambia is necessarily “working with,” since the activities will be directed by Zambians and our work will be alongside members of the Kawama community. With that said, I hope that this blog will transmit our focus on “being with” the people of Kawama. As we learn of their stories and way of life, and rejoice in the opportunity to come together across continents, we will do our best to update you on what we come to understand, believe and question through this experience.

The full text of Wells’ sermon that I’ve referred to can be found here: http://www.duke.edu/~akr12/NazarethManifesto_SamWells.doc. I welcome and would love to hear your thoughts and comments and look forward to you following along with us on this journey!

Zambia : service

Pre-Trip Reflections on Service