Final Reflections From AFSC's Fall 2012 Interns

 Reflections From Erick Dillard

Over the whole process of being an intern, I have had my progressive days and I have also had my days when I have digressed. What I've learned on these days in which I have digressed was to be aware of my mistakes, fix them, and apply them to my life. At American Friends Service Committee, I have come into contact with many different ethnicities, ages, organizations, and have heard different stories. One common thing with everyone I have encountered is the belief in helping the communities in New Orleans. I've even seen this in kids. I feel that AFSC has pushed me to my growing edge. The reason I feel this way is because if I wasn't able to go into these communities, I would be a part of the majority dictating how these communities need to be ran without being informed.

There were 3 interns this fall semester. They included: Antoinette Berger, Isaiah Jones and myself. We all came from different backgrounds, but because of our mutual feeling of wanting to help communities and our mission to learn and teach nonviolence it worked out just right. I will not say we have never had debates because we have. However, the positive outcome of these debates is that both parties found out what was in the best interest of one another.

The world is full of different minds, bodies, and souls. So as a people we have to know how to adapt to different environments. This internship makes you think outside the box and question what society wants you to believe. Also, AFSC and its’ staff  will push you higher because my facilitator ,Ahmane' Glover, believes in me and believes in the worth of every person. I feel that my goals have been reached. Now with these goals being met, I want to take it a step further, and now apply them.

Reflections From Antoinette Berger

           This internship has honestly been one of the most amazing things that I have been privileged to experience. I learned the true meaning to networking and the importance of building new relationships. When I applied to work at AFSC, I certainly did not fully expect to get to know my fellow interns as I have. I work with three of the wildest, most sensationally animated, and kindest people I have ever met. When I first started the internship, I always preferred working by myself and then I saw the beauty of collaboration. Team work with the interns was an adjustment at first but shorty after, things began to fall into place seamlessly. All in all, I am definitely going to put the knowledge I have accumulated and the relationships I've built to use.

View my video about this internship: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z879ssh7v8455bd/ANTOINETTE_MASTEPIECE.wlmpReflections

Reflections From Isaiah Jones

Before coming onto this internship I only had the brief experiences of working with the American Friends Service Committee as a shadow or really as a friend of a friend who was helping. Regardless I got swept into the connections and awesome people while back at home in Seattle where I also got moved by organizations like People Of Color Against AIDS Network to get more involved in the community, to be more active towards the idea of being a community organizer/activist. But over the course of this fall with the help of the Peace and Justice internship my dreams shifted and became more focused from where they once were. I decided that I wanted to be a teacher and incorporate the things that I have learned and will continue to learn from my experiences here. The importance of talking it out when things get tough, letting the mind be creatively expressive through sound, sight and action, recognizing the validity of multiple forms of intelligence—I knew all of this on an intellectual level however working here has allowed me to gain first hand real world application of these ideas helping me to solidify their validity inside myself.

In the future, I imagine being in a class room doing the fun, funky, and powerful icebreakers with my students, engaging them with themselves personally and the others across the room as we all try to find our authentic selves. I also imagine pushing them to go out into the communities around them, to connect to the vital energies present but often ignored right next to you in the form of a neighbor or community center or organization working for positive changes. I know that I speak from the standpoint of wondering what it would have been like if I had had more teachers like that along the way. But as I get older and prepare ever more to step out into the bigger world, outside of working for a Bachelors degree, I feel the importance of making manifest within myself the qualities and drives that I wish I had been more exposed to. So I thank you AFSC and the Peace and Justice internship for helping me to find myself that much more and give me fuel for the fire to last longer and burn brighter.