The Global Citizen is a joint project of New Voices and the American Jewish World Service (AJWS). Throughout the year, a group of former AJWS volunteers will offer their take on global justice, Judaism and international development.
As this is my first blog post, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Faigy, and I am currently in Avodah: The Jewish Service Corps, working and living in Chicago.
When I raved about Chicago to my dad, he told me to just wait until February.
I grew up in New Jersey , but for the past three years I attended Queens College (CUNY) and lived just a short walk away from campus. My first encounter with the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) was when I participated on an alternative winter break done jointly with my college Hillel to Nicaragua . This past summer, just after my graduation in May, I traveled again with AJWS, this time on Volunteer Summer to Uganda .
After an extended layover in Amsterdam and six days at home, I was back at the airport, headed to the fine city I live in now. It’s been a hectic few months, to say the least.
For this year, I am living in a house with eight girls (myself included) and there is another Avodah hose nearby that houses another seven girls. Yes, this is a co-ed program, and by sheer chance my city happens not to be this year. Avodah is a yearlong program that runs in four cities, and corps members live together and work at different placements full-time at community-based organizations (CBOs) primarily working on urban poverty issues. The houses in each city have education sessions and house meetings at night, share communal Shabbats monthly, and have retreats and seminars throughout the year.
My job is with i.c.stars as Community Relations Developer, meaning I reach out to other CBOs and market our internship to potential candidates all over the city. Though I could try to summarize the methods and goals of the organization, I think its stated best on our website:
“i.c.stars was formed in 1999 to develop 1,000 Community Leaders by 2020. We are a non-profit organization in Chicago for adults with a high school diploma or GED. Using project-based learning and full immersion teaching, i.c. stars provides an opportunity for change-driven, future leaders to develop skills in business and technology.â€
Working on issues in the developing world during the summer and in the urban world this year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences in types of poverty. Especially in this context, they are worlds apart, literally and figuratively. Granted, they share a lot in common, but the differences far outweigh the similarities.
The differences in opportunity seem, to me, to be the starkest of them all. i.c.stars interns are opened to a new world of opportunity, using networks that were beyond their grasp before the internship, but technically exist within miles or clicks of their homes. Though I don’t say this to negate their amazing work in any way, i.c.stars would not work if there weren’t such resources to be connected with in the first place. Those who live in rural parts of the developing world, for the most part, have no access even to other people with access to larger networks.
*photographs I took in Ramogi, Uganda
In Ramogi, one man told me that we have to be good friends, since friendships with people from America means maybe he can be brought to America . And I heard sentiments along these lines a lot—that making friends with the rare foreigner is considered a smart move, a chance to win a golden ticket out of poverty. Though we volunteers developed strong, meaningful relationships with the people of Ramogi, there was an undercurrent of hope of connecting with us as means of being invited to share in an unimaginable wealth of resources, money, and social networks. To them, we were their “i.c.stars,†no matter how many times we had to explain that we can’t offer anything but our work and friendship.
I’m really proud to be a part of i.c.stars and firmly believe in the approach. Maimonides states in his eight levels of charity that the highest level is helping others support themselves. That is exactly the work of i.c.stars and the type of resource those in the developing world need most. Sociologically, the term is “social capital,†and many believe this is far more significant in terms of determining wealth than one’s current income and assets. In large part, that is exactly what i.c.stars offers, among many significant components, and exactly what people in Ramogi sorely lack. I know I’m oversimplifying a web of complicated issues here, but its still true.
