Inter-personal to Structural Change
It’s nearing the end of the year — many students are rushing to apply for as many volunteer opportunities in order to fill the requirements for graduation or to make their college application stand out among their peers. There is an issue with this — many are not going into volunteering with mindful intention and instead with obligation. While there is a positive effect in this system by driving a society that strives to contribute to their community, this raises the question of what exactly defines good service. An aspect to think about when it comes to volunteering is this idea of “mindful intention.” Mindful intention can be defined as coming into a volunteer opportunity with the intention of building meaningful relationships rather than simply filling in certain obligations. While many argue that any effort into volunteering can be considered good service/charity work, a good service should involve this idea of mindful intention in order to create a connection with individuals in communities. This is important as it shifts the interpersonal understanding into forcing society to go against the traditional model to bring change to future generations, challenging structural issues rather than short-term.
The general consensus suggests that any form of community service helps volunteers develop higher understanding of the surrounding communities, often advancing their views in society. However, this may be misleading since good service requires mindful intention in order to foster long-term change. This structure has been effective in increasing volunteer services, however, reasons why this may have counter effects include how it can feed into hierarchical issues. This issue is addressed in Tania D. Mitchell’s “Traditional vs. Critical Service-Learning: Engaging the Literature to Differentiate Two Models” where she speaks about the downfalls of service-learning experiences that don’t address issues which in turn can “perpetuate inequality and reinforce an “us-them” dichotomy.” This “us-them” thinking can lead to volunteers being unable to move “beyond band-aid service”. This allegory of a band-aid serves to reveal how these traditional ways of thinking may only temporarily help these services. Now, I am not saying that people shouldn’t volunteer if they don’t think they can invest their time for a long period of time, but instead propose how certain volunteer services may not be considered effective. For example, volunteering has become a requirement for many different institutions, in many times forcing individuals to simply get a signature on their volunteer form without having the intention of benefiting the community. Instead, the critical service model should be taken on where the volunteers see “themselves as agents of social change” which can be done by going with intention rather than obligation.
Going into service work with mindful intention, that is, without obligation, benefits in that it allows for volunteers in shortening the gap between the servicer and the servees that results from differences in “hierarchy”. As mentioned prior, focusing on the issues along with volunteering allows for the dispelling of the“myths of deficiency” while also bringing to attention the structural issues apparent in society such as inequality for low income students. This semester, as a part of the community engagement service, one of the organizations that we will be working with are 826LA students. 826 LA is an organization where we can work with low-income students and help them write essays such as scholarships. Understanding that there are obvious differences in the issues we deal with in our daily lives, the goal would be to go in with mindful intention and respond carefully to the concerns of their specific community. These differences are often what compels many to volunteer, which only widens this gap between them and the community it is serving. The positions that are in some way already established, in this case, low-income students and USC students, makes it difficult to create genuine connections that are not centered around the differences. Although this service can be viewed as being a requirement, going in with the intention of being genuinely interested in building relationships and being aware of the “realities of social inequality” in order to not “homogenize all the people’’ in 826LA is key in creating a good service.
As complex this relationship of service is, it is often difficult to approach volunteering out of mindful intention since it is often “forced volunteerism” as more institutions are implementing volunteer requirements and many tend to overlook the injustices that need to be addressed. What I am saying is that with institutions like schools implementing volunteering as their requirement, many enter only with finishing their task on their mind rather than looking beyond the structural issues. Often along with this are students looking for volunteers that can emphasize their “pre professional” strengths to these schools. For example, many may volunteer at 826LA to show their leadership and passion in serving the community and reveal development socially/personally. However, with emphasis on the volunteer, it may come off as them taking advantage of the low-income people in making a better resume or presentation of themselves. This essentially prevents volunteers from considering the injustices that created these services from the beginning. Some ways one can go in with mindful intention with 826LA students looks like encouraging them to share their individual stories and listening while being responsive to their stories.
The main priority I would aim for in this semester would be to create a safe space so that they can share anything from their day to their problems. I will go in with the intention of having a deeper level of understanding than what I can learn in classrooms by working to eliminate stereotypes that I may have that I was unaware of. Rather than thinking that I am going there as a USC student who has privileges they may not have, I would instead change biases I may have and approach the students in finding common ground and even learning of what issues they may have that I could critically think about. Taking into account Tania Mitchell’s ideas, the hierarchical structures will be rejected and methods that can create engaging interpersonal relationships such as discussion without overstepping boundaries are important when it comes to mindful intention.
All in all, the perception that volunteer and charity is synonymous reveals the issue revolving around what good service is defined as. Mindful intention in the long-run is necessary so that there can be change in the shift from interpersonal relationships to later then challenge structural issues for low-income students in 826LA. Rather than having the mentality that the volunteer is a requirement that needs to be met, volunteers should focus on being critical of the unjust structures that result in these services being held from the beginning. As in the case of 826LA students, in order to overcome the structural issues regarding low-income students, deeper understanding with interpersonal relationships is imperative in challenging the issues.
