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Wednesday night was the last day of Technology class. Nina and I presented our WebQuest on
Art for Social Justice, based largely on information from the book Half the Sky, by New York Times husband and wife team, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn:
~ the book also started the
Half the Sky Movement:
Our WebQuest is essentially about using an art project as a catalyst for learning about a social justice issue, gender inequality. And then also learning about a possible solution: microfinance, by raising a donation for women or girls in a developing region through a fundraiser held by the students of sales of friendship bracelets that they would create as a part of the unit.
Since class was over the previous night, it felt weird not having any assignments or projects due (other than all the stuff to do at work, but I wanted to volunteer, and also my son is away at camp til the end of next week). So I went online and signed up to volunteer at
Chicago Cares. When I hit "send" I happened to see that the project I volunteered for was taking place in an hour ("Oh." I thought), so I went ahead and drove to the men's shelter,
San Jose Obrero Mission, 1836 S. Loomis, Chicago, where I had impulsively signed on to volunteer for "Mock Interviews" before looking at the date.
The first thing I noticed when I arrived was the beautiful mural painted on the entire side of the building, pictured above. The credits are listed on it. I wondered what kind of scaffolding was used to get to the top parts of it. There are a number of beautifully painted butterflies featured in it, as symbols of hope, I think, and depictions of people in need including a man curled up and cradled in a giant pair of hands. There is also a large tree made out of hands with the word "comunidad,"
community, painted on it. It also features the words, painted in bold letters: HOPE, Respect, JOBS, and "Dignidad,"
dignity.
Like a regular interview, I arrived early to Mock Interviews. There was a good-looking skinny guy who looked like Keanu Reeves when I came through the entrance, who happened to be the guy in charge of the shelter that day so I let him know I was volunteering with Chicago Cares and asked if was ok if I waited at the table. Right inside the entrance were long tables with plastic chairs that as I found out later, is the cafeteria. I sat at the table closest to the door and read from Half the Sky because I'm still reading it - it's somewhat of a heavy read. While I was reading a young man sat down across from me and introduced himself. I asked him if he was here for the mock interviews and he said yes and also told me that he'd been to an interview during the day. I told him that was great and he said he'd been really nervous during the interview. I replied that it's completely normal to feel nervous during an interview and that is also why it was a great idea that he was doing the mock interview for practice.
My typical ability to ask complete strangers all sorts of questions about themselves kicked in, so I found out that he is 22, originally from Chicago and had spent the past winter living mainly outside in a tent in Wisconsin. He had gone up there and stayed with his sister, her husband, and kid(s), but there had been some issues. He said he'd refused to call family services on them, alluding to domestic issues going on in the house as well as a sentiment that family services is an enemy to avoid. He'd ended up moving out and being homeless during the winter. He'd contracted pneumonia twice and almost TB he said. TB? I asked. He said, yeah you can get that from being in the cold for a long time.
A few more volunteers arrived, two women who work the Red Cross doing CPR training and young woman who works at a beauty salon. She'd come here from California with her boyfriend, but they'd split up, now she lives here, works in the salon, and sometimes volunteers for Chicago Cares. She was born in Mexico. Her father is a truck driver. She'd grown up and lived around southern California including Los Angeles and San Francisco.
I've lived in San Francisco and we talked about it concerning homeless people who live there - homeless people make their way there as well because of the living conditions and open attitude towards them. I had volunteered at the San Francisco Aids Foundation at the bilingual hotline. It was also a way to practice Spanish, even though I don't remember getting many calls that required it. There were seriously so many homeless people there, that as a bike and foot-communter I really did began to become desensitized to it. Reaganomics closed psych wards in CA hospitals and those patients who could, made it to, yep, San Francisco! Interestingly
non-homeless people living there were accepting of the homeless, stepping over or around them on the sidewalk and handing out spare change when they had it. I had became one of those people, but things changed when had my baby and he began toddling. I think when we take care of things, our children, our pets, anything, our perspectives begin changing. I felt protective of my son and began taking side streets when I walked and he toddled to avoid situations where people living on the street might try to touch him. This happened on the corner where the street I was living on intersected with Market Street. I felt protective of him. I still do. I guess it's normal as a parent to want your child to be safe and want the best things for him.
We all know not everyone gets to have that.
Half the Sky reveals that 40% of the world's population is living on less that $2 a day. 80% on less than $10 a day. 80%. A girl in Vietnam featured in
Half the Sky must sell 100 lottery tickets a day to earn 4 dollars, half of which she must pay to her dad. She gets the $2/day with which to pay for her own education and feed herself. Her tiny living space has a dirt floor which floods during the rainy season and turns into mud and she shares the bed with her brother and dad. If the girl lived in the United States she could go to school for free, the quality of which would depend on where she lived. If lucky, she could also get free tutoring. As a single working parent her father could apply for government aid to help with food and health care for himself and his children. People who make it to a shelter such as San Jose Obrero Mission have their own bed, hot meals, job trainings and other forms of support.
Thomas arrived as well, the Chicago Cares Project Leader. After introductions he passed out interview packets, which, I thought were well-put together. I also took a Spanish packet but after looking through the packet I discovered that my reading is not that great and that I could definitely use a brusher-up. Thomas worked as an ESL teacher in Ghana during college, majored in African Studies, and has worked for non-profits since then. He has also taken a group of teens from a church group of Hurricane Katrina aid to help rebuild in New Orleans and Mississippi as well. When I was in high school I went with a small church group to Mexico to help build a house. It was experiential learning because due to that experience I have a rudimentary, hands-on understanding of simple brick house construction: digging and pouring the foundation, reinforcing with steel rebar and building up the walls with brick and mortar. I've done some cement sculpture work and always made sure to reinforce with some sort of steel armature - and I know it was due to this experience.
After all this it turned out there was another training going on at the same time as Mock Interviews. Most of the patrons were already in it. Only two men showed up to our Mock Interviews and the two Red Cross women took them on. I spent the time chatting with Thomas and the woman from California, whose conversation content is listed above. I also looked at the black and white photographs that decorated the walls and thought to myself that they definitely needed more contrast and watched Keanu Reeves heat up dinner in the small kitchen at the end of the cafeteria. I remembered some of the kitchens I've worked in and also the mural that I painted in the cafeteria at
Interfaith House. I thought the SJOM could definitely use some interior work to catch up to its glorious exterior.
It was definitely a very kick-back experience. I've signed up for a couple more volunteerings with Chicago Cares: "Job Coaching" and "Real Talk," talking about current issues, both at other shelters. And I've written down the dates and times.
