This is the final reflection paper for this class and I’d like to take some time to reflect on this experience. Going into this I was kind of unsure as to what I was supposed to do during my time volunteering, this made me somewhat nervous to begin this experience over all. The first time we went to visit I believe that everyone involved was somewhat uncomfortable. Between my nervousness and the families limited English it made for an uneasy situation. I’m not sure if they really knew who we were and this led to a more complicated fist encounter. However as time progressed and we visited more and more, I think the family became more and more comfortable with us and we became more comfortable with them. Our visits fell into a usual routine. The first thing we would do is ask their eldest child (a 7 year old boy ) if he has home work that week. If the answer was yes, then my partner and I would help him with any home work he had. During this time our mentor usually played with their daughter who at the time was their youngest child. As time passed I became more and more attached to this family, though I had rather limited interaction with the parents. I found myself looking forward to Mondays, looking forward to the opportunity to see the smiling faces of this amazing family. As we spent more time in the family’s home we began to interact more with the adults in the family. Though we still haven’t had much in the way of conversations, the mother tends to sit with us more and you just get the sense that she is more comfortably with the fact that we are there.
A few weeks ago for the first time they brought papers out to us. They were very official looking and they asked us what they were. They were papers to reapply for benefits from Illinois human services. Now not to sound conceited, but I consider myself a relatively competent
American college student and I found these papers complicated. I can only imagine what it must be like for someone who can’t read or write in English. Let alone speak it. We did our best to
help them fill out these papers, but we also made sure that they had an appointment with their
case worker to help further with anything we may have missed or done incorrectly. It’s very
frustrating to think about how difficult it must be for this family and other refuge families to get
the help they deserve and so desperately need. Just a little while after this the family welcomed a new member, a beautiful baby girl. It was so great to meet this little bundle of joy for the first
time after Easter break. It was more than slightly aggravating though that even this little miracle come with paperwork which once again was rather difficult to understand. As time goes by we
seem to bond more and more with this family and though I will be going home for the summer I hope to be able to visit them again when I return in the fall. I feel that I have learned so much
from this experience.
I feel that it has been valuable in teaching just how much I take for granted in this world. I feel that the things I have learned from volunteering combined with the class itself has
transformed my view of refugees. It has made me much more aware of their struggles. It has
taught me that once a refugee is out of the camps, their troubles have not ended and has made
me realize the global population needs to take more responsibility for its people. The fact that
our government, even when we allow refugees entrance into this remarkable country; not only
expects them to be self sufficient within three months of coming here but also expects them to
pay back their complete travel costs within 2 years. It’s unreasonable. We need to give these
people more time to adjust to the entirely new world that they are being thrown in to.
My experiences this semester have changed and challenged my views. My experiences have made me more responsible in recognizing what I have as well as my responsibility to the global community.