ABOUT ME
I have always had a passion for volunteer work. I first began to experience it and came to learn I thoroughly enjoyed it through my years as a girl scout when I was younger. I have been on a couple of mission trips and the one that sticks out the most in my head is my volunteer trip to Haiti. It was my first experience traveling to a third world country and many of my experiences there shocked me and also changed the way I looked at different parts of my life. The biggest thing I took from that trip was how even though many of the children we visited had next to nothing, they still had an incredible spirit that was inspiring to witness. I think this became for of an influence on me wanting to continue learning about humanitarian issues because it was so different from all of the “doom and gloom” articles and stories I had been exposed to before. My Haiti experience was the first time I really got to connect with and see the children whose work humanitarian action helps and I found hope in that that propelled me to learn more about humanitarian affairs.
Another experience I had that was a motivator was a more current and vastly different situation. In my research methods class, my project was about natural disaster prevention and focused on how better communication between local news sources and the public can save lives. While researching the project I had a hard time containing myself to simply the prevention aspect of the disasters. I found myself wanting to know more about the work done during and after the disaster. I also found myself designing new research projects that I could use to expand my current project and they were all centered on humanitarian ideas. My side interests had begun to spill into my major so when I discovered the Humanitarian Affairs minor I felt it was exactly what I was looking for.
Going into this class, I had a feeling that my expectations of the class weren’t going to be exactly what the class was about. Something inside me knew that thinking it was going to be a straight forward approach to ideas like, ‘How can you help?’ and ‘Here is that problem…and here is the solution.” Because while I knew, in some part of my mind, that there was so much more to humanitarianism, I had never experienced the gray area of humanitarian action in any experience or article I had read so I didn’t know exactly how my views and understanding would change. Right off the bat with the first article we read, it was already clear that this class would be dealing with intense subject material and showing a side of humanitarianism that is not as widely recognized.
After this class, one of the biggest changes to my thinking is that there is almost no black and white approach to humanitarianism. The field cannot be pared down to a ‘good’ and ‘evil’ side, it is too complex. Even the very act of defining humanitarianism can be a difficult gray area to navigate. One of the other ideas that I latched onto and can see myself pursuing more after this class is the role that politics plays in humanitarianism. I had never realized just how intertwined the two are and I want to know and understand much more about the smaller details of the relationship between the two.
I have always had a passion for volunteer work. I first began to experience it and came to learn I thoroughly enjoyed it through my years as a girl scout when I was younger. I have been on a couple of mission trips and the one that sticks out the most in my head is my volunteer trip to Haiti. It was my first experience traveling to a third world country and many of my experiences there shocked me and also changed the way I looked at different parts of my life. The biggest thing I took from that trip was how even though many of the children we visited had next to nothing, they still had an incredible spirit that was inspiring to witness. I think this became for of an influence on me wanting to continue learning about humanitarian issues because it was so different from all of the “doom and gloom” articles and stories I had been exposed to before. My Haiti experience was the first time I really got to connect with and see the children whose work humanitarian action helps and I found hope in that that propelled me to learn more about humanitarian affairs.
Another experience I had that was a motivator was a more current and vastly different situation. In my research methods class, my project was about natural disaster prevention and focused on how better communication between local news sources and the public can save lives. While researching the project I had a hard time containing myself to simply the prevention aspect of the disasters. I found myself wanting to know more about the work done during and after the disaster. I also found myself designing new research projects that I could use to expand my current project and they were all centered on humanitarian ideas. My side interests had begun to spill into my major so when I discovered the Humanitarian Affairs minor I felt it was exactly what I was looking for.
Going into this class, I had a feeling that my expectations of the class weren’t going to be exactly what the class was about. Something inside me knew that thinking it was going to be a straight forward approach to ideas like, ‘How can you help?’ and ‘Here is that problem…and here is the solution.” Because while I knew, in some part of my mind, that there was so much more to humanitarianism, I had never experienced the gray area of humanitarian action in any experience or article I had read so I didn’t know exactly how my views and understanding would change. Right off the bat with the first article we read, it was already clear that this class would be dealing with intense subject material and showing a side of humanitarianism that is not as widely recognized.
After this class, one of the biggest changes to my thinking is that there is almost no black and white approach to humanitarianism. The field cannot be pared down to a ‘good’ and ‘evil’ side, it is too complex. Even the very act of defining humanitarianism can be a difficult gray area to navigate. One of the other ideas that I latched onto and can see myself pursuing more after this class is the role that politics plays in humanitarianism. I had never realized just how intertwined the two are and I want to know and understand much more about the smaller details of the relationship between the two.