Addicted
by Agnes Lux, International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP)
My IVLP tour really changed my life. I became more open to others and also more curious about different countries and cultures. And after half a year, I also changed my job. I learned from these three weeks that you can definitely leave your comfort zone. Be brave.
I have to start my story with the fact that I can’t be impartial when it comes to the United States.
Yes, I have an Obama T-shirt (actually, two), I like wearing Converse sneakers, even for business meetings (the single pair I bought in New York), I enjoy peanut butter, donuts, Ben’s chili dog, and Starbucks’ vanilla lattes (especially since I was fortunate enough to visit Pike Street in Seattle) very much. I like to read USA Today (and The New Yorker, too), and couldn’t wait for season four of House of Cards. So, if you would like to read an objective analysis, give it up and close my story.
I experienced awesome things during my stays in the United States (and learned that my U.S. friends like the word “awesome” very much, consequently our alumni group named itself “IVLP Awesome”on Facebook), which have really changed my life.
In 2011, I had the opportunity to visit the United States as a tourist (later I realized I visited just New York, then it became clear I had only been in Manhattan). It was love at first sight and Jay-Z and Alicia Keys’ “Empire State of Mind” song became my anthem.
During my work at the Hungarian Ombudsman’s Office that time I already had some good working relationship with the American Embassy in Budapest, I was invited to several meetings on different topics related to children’s rights. Later, I was invited to take part in the IVLP program (“Children in the U.S. Justice System”) in 2014. I had no clue about the details, the only thing I knew this will be an international kind of a seminar for three weeks. But this was much more than that.
We visited four states in three weeks; we literally flew through the United States. In Washington D.C., where we started our program, we had a great time already not only during our official visits from 9 am to 6 pm, but after hours as well as we were watching together the State of the Union speech and the Superbowl (despite that most of us could hardly follow the game’s rules). Then we were divided into 3 smaller groups thatworked closer in the next couple of days at different places. My group, with judges, attorneys, NGO experts from Japan, Trinidad-Tobago, Jordan, Ghana, Malawi, Portugal went to the Lake Michigan Area, Kalamazoo (where the cover picture of one of the most famous Nirvana albums was made! ). There was huge (really huge) snow and cold (really cold), which was quite a new experience for our African friends, but also for myself, who like winter sports, I have never thought that wintertime could be that hard.
We also visited juvenile courts with progressive ways of thinking, prioritizing restorative justice despite of deprivation of liberty, what I have learned only from law studies as the Michigan-model. Now it became a reality for me. And also an absolutely new type of institution for young offenders opened my eyes. This was the Lakeside Academy which focuses on the confrontation and redirection of negative behavior while recognizing desired positive behavior.
In the meantime, we had a movie night organized by our group guide, a wonderful lady in her 70’s, a historian by profession, we watched the Oscar-winner movie Philomena. During our stay we had the opportunity to enjoy home hospitality, which is absolutely unknown in my country. I have been totally surprised about this activity, and all of us enjoyed very much our hosts’ kindness and superb dinner in their homes. Volunteering irrespectively of age, background, and interests, was a fantastic combination to learn mutually more about each other.
The whole group met again in Seattle where we also visited the S’Klallam tribe and could get an insight into their youth protection and justice system and we could attend a fantastic outdoor dining event with huge oysters, mussels, crabs cooked on fire.
The last station was New Orleans, Louisiana, with all the differences of a Southern state. No progressive court, but a smart and experienced judge we met and we saw on court an 11-year-old little boy in orange suit and hand-leg cuffed (he was on trial because he carried a gun with him to school and showed it to others). But in the same state, in Baton Rouge, one hour drive away from some memories of Katrina, and natural surroundings which were familiar to me from the series True Detectives, we found a well working little miracle with committed staff and a kind of fairy mother director. It is a special youth center for school truancy where the deviant child can receive all kind of services and support, care in the same place (justice, drug prevention&care, education, etc). I was very much inspired by this visit. Also, it was the time of Mardi Gras and we had a great time together,tasting King Cake. Back home I published an article about the mentioned two best practices in a Hungarian family law review.
All in all, I was enriched not only with experiences that still inspire me to this day, but I met such a great people whom I can proudly call friends. With most of them we still are in touch despite the distances between continents. (I also had a “twin sister” from Ghana, who I have met again in London a year ago, just for fun and still I miss her laugh around me so much).
This tour really changed my life. I became more open to others and also more curious about different countries and cultures. And after half a year, I also changed my job. I learned from these three weeks that you can definitely leave your comfort zone. Be brave enough if you think you are not at the right place.
And you won’t believe it, but this awesome experience was repeated in Zagreb, in February 2016, when I participated in an Alumni TIES seminar on refugee and migration issues. I met wonderful people who taught me more about migration than I learned during my work or studies. I learned again that the world is so diverse and each and every person has their own story, there is no migration crisis, as such. There are different lives, different reasons behind peoples’ motivations, so very tailor-made solutions are needed. I have good friends now from Slovenia to Turkey, from Sweden to the Netherlands, with a background in refugee issues. And I learned a new word during a Skype meeting with the founder of idealist.org — who looks like Hemingway: social justice freak. That grabbed me, and if I could, I would put it on my business card right away.
So that is my story. Through my exchange, I became addicted to an — of course — not perfect, but vivid and exciting culture which is inspiring me continuously and reminding me to take a deep breath and enjoy Life.
