Post Session Report 4/4

My presentation was based on the readings of Paul Farmer’s “On Accompaniment”, Jill Stauffer’s interview on “Ethical Loneliness” and Cheryl Hyde’s “Challenging Ourselves: Critical Self-Reflection on Power and Privilege”. I focused on the interpersonal experience that service learning has on people. My activities focused in on highlighting how connections between people happen every day without giving it much thought.

However, real connections between people should be valued even if they do not happen on a regular day basis. A point was brought up that a a simple conversation can mean so much to someone even if we ourselves do not realize. I personally thought that my method of facilitating was not quite as effective as I imagined. However, the abstract nature of my point made it difficult to convey in a creative way. Despite this, I learned more in class than I would have otherwise.

A quote by Paul Farmer in his address to Harvard University on accompaniment states this…

As a society, we are happy to help and serve the poor, as long as we don’t have to walk with them where they walk, that is, as long as we can minister to them from our safe enclosures. The poor can then remain passive objects of our actions, rather than friends, compañeros and compañeras with whom we interact.

This quote highlights the necessity for people to have a level of intimacy and vulnerability to not only be engrossed in a community one wishes to better, but to quite literally live amongst them; to walk the same shoes they walk and understand every single sorrow and joy that is their life.

Some sources that touch upon these connections are present in a variety of fields. In terms of psychology and the development of an individual throughout their life, I refer one to research and study Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory of Development. It is very hard to understand a community without first understanding some of the challenges individuals face on a day-to-day basis. Noticing the struggles of many individuals in a community may point to a specific problem that a community is facing.