Modesto, California for leadership training 2008
As a Waterloo resident, I lead a Wilfrid Laurier team because there are currently no teams at Conestoga College. This meant that I had to spend all breaks and after class writing midterms so I could take a week off class.
Modesto, California is a place that I had never heard of but I was very excited to hear about the week to come. We spent a week living in the Church of Hope, the leaders were required to partake in a variety of different things, including:
- picking up children from slums/ lower income housing areas and creating programs for them
- organizing and distributing food
- throwing barbeques in numerous parks for the homeless
- acting homeless: we were required to spend a day with homeless people, without money or anything to help us. We were required to eat lunch at a food bank with the homeless as well as a variety of other tasks
After working on international projects I learned the value of helping out in North America. Homeless people in California can get arrested for lodging, be left without anything and get arrested and charged for rummaging through other people's garbage.
There were communities that had been called unsafe because they were perpetuating drugs, prostition and gang violence and were completly evacuated. These people were no given no alternative housing or means of survival. And people wonder WHY there communities have problems and how these negative things come full circle?!
I have a sincere interest in working for the people of the world, and I believe that this experience has taught me so much. I have come to realize the issues in our backyard and seen some horrible injustices. My role in public relations will be a very humble role for every person.
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