I will start this blog by saying there was once a jail somewhere, or maybe it's still there, that was plagued by insurmountable violence. The inmates were unhappy and aggressive. I will end this short story by saying once the walls were painted pink the violence subsided. No other jail adopted this method. It wasn't popular, even though it did work. I can't honestly tell you I know why the pink walls worked, I can't. But I can say that if I was the creative director of a prison or the owner I would say to my inmates some of you will be in here for the rest of your lives, we don't have many options, but what color would you like for the walls? Because you see it is not me who has to live in this place I am not the one who does not to go home at night and so if the least we can do is ask, what might make this punishment a little more bearable, a pink wall isn't so much to supply.
So somewhere an Italian man is giving a Ted talk on how he listens to the voices of his clients in order to help them and that it was successful. But do we adopt that plan of action? Or do we go on with the original grey walls because THAT is how we know to go about things.
The first thing I've come to learn about helping others is to throw out everything you think you know about a person or people you've never met. There is nothing I can tell a local person about their culture that they do not already know.
I resented the conversation in class that spoke about our trips being ... Well for lack of a better term, completely self-serving. I resented it because I honestly cannot see myself as better than any other person. I cannot see myself offering to provide some great relief when I know for a fact that I don't come from some sort of supreme livng circumstance. That being said I did begin to realize that my entire existence at Lehigh makes more privileged than many people. Lehigh in itself puts us in a position to look down on the rest of the world and so in that way, okay, I give in my higher education does make me the white man. But to put that aside, if that is even possible, I go back to my motivation for this class and my conviction that I am not the self-serving and imposing service student. I joined the class to learn everything I can. To learn about a country, a culture, and a people but most important to do that with a first hand experience. For that reason I'd known that I wanted to hear the stories of the people around me. I wanted then to act out the milestones in their lives, sing their sorrows, speak their aspirations above all I wanted to encourage expression in any way. Because the more I know about them, the more open dialogue becomes the wider the path of knowledge becomes and the easier that transaction behind to flow, from ignorant to informed and from culture to culture. And when the expression is out of the way and all that is left is the impact of what has been shared, awareness follows. The very sudden awareness of all you have been privy too and all u have missed. And suddenly awareness lends to insight which lends to creativity and that is when collaboration takes hold. This is important because there is no success without an active partnership. I respect the person who said u need to build a relationship with the people you aim to serve and that is true.
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