The Greatest Obstacle in Assisting Others: The Internal Obstacle

All service projects come with both a great personal reward as well as a reward to the people you are serving.  However, when assisting others, the reward also comes with a great amount of both responsibility and empathy for the people you are helping.  Both Kelly’s experiences, as well as my own, have showed me that the greatest obstacle in assisting others the comprehension of  what they have gone through and the feelings that come along with the understanding of trauma and struggles that they face throughout their lives.

After listening to Kelly speak, I was very inspired by her stories and the course of action she took to make a difference in other lives.  She shared pictures of her travels and the people she met, and her stories about trying to help these many people were heartwarming.  However, from listening to her speak, I gathered that possibly the most difficult part of helping these people, was to hear and learn about their lifestyles and the way they were forced to live.  During her presentation, there were multiple times that Kelly became very emotional, recapturing the stories about the people she has met.  She described the nineteen year old girl who witnessed the decapitation of her family members and who was forced to abandon her mother at a refugee camp.  She stated that in this moment, it was so hard for her to realize and accept  that the only difference between her own life, and the life of this girl, was the chance of birth.  Kelly told us how hard it was for her to listen to stories such as this, and how she herself felt guilty that she lives in such fortune and luxury that others do not have that same fortune.  She was pained by their stories, and felt angry that people had to live in such conditions, when she herself takes advantage of such small necessities every day.  After listening to Kelly speak, I arrived at the conclusion that one of the most difficult aspects in assisting others is listening to their heartbreaking stories, comparing them to your own life, and realizing the lack of concern for people in such dire need. 

Although I have experienced these scenarios on a different level, I can relate to this feeling of pity and anger that Kelly felt through my own service projects.  In high school, my main service focus was leading an anti-bulling group at my school.  I often mentored students of different grade levels in their fear and struggles that they face every day because of the words and actions of other students.  The stories were often heart wrenching, and at times very scary, as I talked to both a student who was physically hurting herself, as well as a boy who contemplated suicide.  This type of service was extremely rewarding, and from the feedback that our group received, I knew that we were making a serious difference in these students’ lives.  However, like Kelly, this service was very difficult for me at times because I would listen to these students describe their fear of going to school or even their thoughts of hurting themselves.  Words cannot describe how I felt in trying to deal with the boy who wanted to commit suicide, and it was a pain that I will remember for the rest of my life.  Like Kelly’s anger that she felt towards the people who forced the nineteen year old girl leave her mother, I felt anger towards the children who, in a literal sense, almost bullied this little boy to his death.  From my own experiences, I was able to recognize Kelly’s feelings for the people that she tried to help, and I can relate that listening and understanding these personal stories is very possibly the greatest obstacle in assisting others.

Although Kelly’s service was on a much greater and international scale than my own service, I can relate in small ways to the way she felt when she helped others.  In this way, I believe the greatest obstacle in assisting others is an internal obstacle; it is an obstacle that can inflict fear, guilt, and extreme empathy for the person you are assisting.  However, despite your struggles when dealing with this person in need, I am certain that Kelly and I can both agree that any internal obstacle service may cause is without a doubt worth the pain because of  both the rewarding experience that you receive, as well as the assistance you pass on to others.

The Local Impact of Technology and Social Change

               After traveling to the St. Johns/St. Ann’s Outreach Center this week, the organization provided an eye-opening experience to the different lifestyles of the people in our community.  In everyday life, it is easy to take for granted common accustoms, such as food, shelter, education, and even the modern technology that assists our everyday living.  After our presentation at the outreach center, I could not help but to notice that technology, if presented to the Outreach Center, would have a huge impact on their success in their efforts to acquire social change within the Albany area.

                During our presentation at the Outreach Center, the class was filed into a small building where we learned about the purpose of the shelter and the struggles that it faces to give the people of Albany a safe place to receive help.  We walked through the kitchen and the storage areas, seeing first-hand the small amounts of canned and packaged goods they have for the families that come to eat.  We saw a small rack of clothing, and a few volunteers trying to make ends meet.  The woman who runs the center explained to us that they serve about three hundred families, and roughly two hundred- fifty to three hundred meals per day.  She told us that the outreach center provides two managers paid jobs, but the majority of the staff consists of volunteers.  She explained difficulties that the center faces with the high demand for food, since the neighboring community pantry is temporarily closed, and the produce supply recently cut drastically because of the excessive rain that passed through Albany.  She also explained the G.E.D. program that they host at the center, as well as the donations of furniture and clothing in their small storage space.  However, with the large demand of people in need, and the many different causes they support, the center’s grants have recently been cut from $18,000 to about $9,900 per year.  Listening to her stories and hearing her frightening statistics was heart wrenching, and their lack of support from the government and the community is limiting their ability to provide a social change to the people in Albany who need it the most.

                As a class of college students studying technology and the positive impact it can have on lives and a community, we know that there are many ways that the Outreach Center could benefit from the modern technology that we use every day.  Telling the stories of the Outreach Center to people on social networks is the first step to receiving support from people in the community.  Just like Team Sameer in Jennifer AAker and Andy Smith’s novel, The Dragonfly Effect, our class could spread the word about the center’s struggles and lack of support through a Facebook group.  We can tell their story, while keeping in mind the goal of receiving support, and requiring help from those who receive the group invitation.  This Facebook marketing method is the first step because it would make people aware of what is going on in their community outside of their daily lives, and could potentially help to receive donations and volunteers.  Also, computers would greatly benefit the Outreach Center with the Writing Partnership and G.E.D. program.  The computers would allow the people at the center to access the internet, programs such as Microsoft Word, and many other applications to enrich their knowledge and help them to obtain the necessary education to find a job in today’s society.  Along with the help of education, the Outreach Center would also benefit from computers because they would help them to keep track of their data and to record how many people are coming in and out of the center.  This recorded data could be critical in trying to receive help from people within the community, or even in trying to persuade the government to give more grants.  In these ways, the modern technology that we take advantage of everyday could be extremely beneficial to the Outreach Center to help them provide the social change within Albany that they struggle to achieve.

                The St. John’s/St. Ann’s Outreach Center, as well as many other struggling outreach centers, could benefit extremely from the use of technology in their efforts to help the community.  From marketing their stories to the general public, to providing computers for job applications and the recording of data, simple elements of modern technology could completely transform the center’s efforts in providing the social change necessary to make better lives for the people of Albany.  As a class studying technology and the effects it can have on social change, I believe it is our obligation to help the volunteers of St. John’s/St. Ann’s to make the local community a better place. 

Apple: The Modern Guide to the Development of Technology

In today’s society, Apple has entirely altered and developed modern technology.  In our class  trip to the Apple store, our tour guide showed us Apple’s continually developing technology, and he explained to us the practical use of their products.  Apple has guided the development of this modern technology by altering computers and machines to perform functions that I previously thought impossible. 

                Upon taking the tour of the Apple store, our guide showed us Apple’s latest technology and explained how they are practical in everyday use.  He explained the solid-state memory system that Apple uses in their computers, eliminating the need for moving parts in the memory of a computer.  He showed us well-known products such as the iPad and the iPhone, and explained to us popular applications such as Facetime, which allows the user to talk to someone on the phone while seeing their face.  He even showed us products such as the credit card reader, that allows you to swipe your card and track purchases on your phone, and the iGrill, which sends alerts to your phone to tell you when the food on your grill is at a proper temperature.  Our tour guide stated that these products are the up and coming technology of the twenty-first century, and could possibly revolutionize technology as whole.

                After taking the tour of the Apple store, I agree with our tour guide that Apple’s progress in the development of technology will guide all other aspects of electronics.    While Apple did not invent the computer, the business has advanced the basic idea of the computer, and found ways to make it portable, wireless, and accomplish tasks that I previously thought impossible.  For example, the Air Play allows your music to wirelessly stream to your television.  I find it amazing that technology has advanced to perform such tasks wirelessly.  Also, I find the iPad and Ebooks very practical because as a college student, I believe it would be very helpful to have all of my books, notes, and papers in one place.  In a medical perspective, Apple’s technology can be of great use and importance to many people because there is a device that monitors a patient’s blood pressure, and sends updates directly to the their phone.  This device is not only useful, but could possibly be of critical importance to someone in need.  For these many reasons, I believe that Apple’s advances in electronics have greatly guided modern technology and developed new ways to go about daily life.

                After the field trip to the Apple Store, I was very impressed by Apple’s progress in their expansion of computers and uses for technology.  As our tour guide showed the class devices that I did not know existed, I realized that he was selling me on these items.  The Tour guide showed many products that seemed practical and useful to either my life, or someone that I know.  With Apple’s developments, it is difficult not to wonder how technology will advance in the near future, and how it will control and effect everyday life in years to come.