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<\/a>The SCCAP Health and Disabilities Department<\/p><\/div>\n
Continuing to volunteer and taking on leadership roles, I truly felt as though I had become a part of the SCCAP family. Through this experience, I found a community that inspires me to explore my passions and to expand my worldview. I hope to bring this experience of being a part of a community founded in care and support into my fellowship experience as I head to the Philippines with my teammates. Meeting people in SCCAP also led to my decision to study abroad in El Salvador in the fall of my junior year.<\/p>\n
While studying abroad in El Salvador, I had the opportunity to accompany three families living in a community called Mariona. This community faces economic and social limitations, as its members must commute far distances to find work while also fearing for\u00a0safety at home, an area affected by gang activity. However, as I learned about these families\u2019 current and past struggles there was always the common theme of hope.<\/p>\n
<\/a>My Salvadoran Family<\/p><\/div>\n
As I visited the community of Mariona each Monday and Wednesday my role was solely to experience the reality of poor. I was not there to fix or change, but to learn. Yet I found myself thinking, now that I have experienced the reality of the poor; what can I do about it? Although I still do not have the answer to this question, my experiences studying abroad in El Salvador have taught me the importance of considering the context that social issues exist in before one can enter the scene with a \u201cfixer\u201d attitude. I grew in my understanding of the developing world and how to be in solidarity with the marginalized communities in it. As I participate in this fellowship and work with Rags2Riches I will have a very different role from that which I had in El Salvador, as I transition from simply being in the developing world to doing. This welcome change excites me, as I will be taking part in a fellowship that places me in a position to actively address problems of injustice.<\/p>\n
I also had the opportunity to interact and participate in women\u2019s cooperatives, while in El Salvador. I saw a true display of solidarity between these women as they collectively struggled to maintain their livelihoods. They shared their stories with us, and also their craft, as they would teach us a little about how to weave and\u00a0embroider and about the materials that they used.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Learning how to weave at an artisan cooperative in El Salvador<\/p><\/div>\n
However, these women would not always be quick to open up. I learned the importance of sharing my own motivations for coming to visit their cooperatives, for studying in El Salvador, and what I was learning, in building relationships and trust between our group and the women. Once we let them into our context, they let us into their own. In my visits to various cooperatives, I found solidarity where I least expected it. This experience inspired a change in how I value and advocate for women\u2019s empowerment issues. Through my participation with Rags2Riches, I now have the opportunity to continue learning about the issues that marginalized women face as I enter this new corner of the world.<\/p>\n
Even though I may leave the developing world, I do not have to leave my experiences there behind. I can remain in solidarity with the Salvadoran families that I accompanied and the women in the cooperatives I visited as I search for opportunities, like GSBF that will allow me to do so in my own context. I was once asked the question to whom or what do I belong? And I have come to realize that I belong to the people I am in relationship with, whether that is my family, the SCCAP community, or people in El Salvador. And there will always be more people to belong to. I am grateful for the opportunity to belong to this fellowship, to Rags2Riches and the communities that I will encounter during my time in the Philippines. I am also excited to discover what all of these relationships will contribute to my understanding of self as I continue to seek clarity on my vocation. Which is one that I believe to be centered on compassion for human beings, service to others and their communities, and addressing problems surrounding development and economic and social marginalization.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you were to ask me what social justice or solidarity meant before I became a student at Santa Clara University, the only answer I would have been capable of giving is community service. Although this is\u00a0not incorrect, now I … Continue reading