Despite the fact that "non-profit" is the new, positive buzzword in the business world, there are serious problems with non-profit work. The quirks of the office have begun to frustrate me. My computer is slow (30 second delays), my phone is static-y (which makes translation even harder), and the copier is our sworn mortal enemy. There are days when I long for a single copy to come out properly without jamming. It has come to the point where if I can reach into the heart of the machine and pull out an un-torn piece of paper, I can declare it a success. It simply is a matter of funds. I imagine that each year the management must decide between implementing essential services for the clients or improving the working conditions of the staff. Naturally, the choice is an easy one, but it is still frustrating for the staff. My site is such a contrast to my visit to Chick-fil-a's corporate headquarters that I made a few months ago, and it is easy to see why someone would choose a work place with a gym and cafeteria over a work place whose shredders are older than most of the staff. Nevertheless, you remind yourself why you are there, and that the copier still makes copies (albeit wrinkled or distorted ones), and the shredders do in fact work. It is a minor inconvenience considering that the money likely went to pay translators or therapists that our clients so desperately need.
You would imagine my surprise then when I took a client to the Illinois Eye Institute. The IEI is a non-profit center that gives advanced optical care to the poorest in Chicago. The building was brand new and the technology was state of the art. My visit was so refreshing because every doctor or staff member you met made a real effort to be warm and accommodating. The visit was long (5 hours), but the eye doctors were thorough and very helpful. I guess the quality of non-profit is really about how much money you have to work with and (as my Dad can tell you) how well the money is managed. I really enjoy the visits because it gives me a chance to really meet some of my clients. These visits are often very interesting both from the medical side of things (try to explain what macular degeneration is in small words when I didn't actually have any idea what it was) and the emotional side by really hearing from these people.
The clients rarely dwell on the past. To them the past is usually unspeakably painful. These people left everything--family, friends, jobs--just in order to live. Employement alone is a very sad thing to discuss with them. Many (but certainly not all) of our clients were tortured because they spoke out against the government or the system in their country. Many of our clients are highly educated and were quite well off. When they arrive in the United States, they usually have to start over. When I help clients fill out Medicaid forms you always see them sadly look down when they admit that they're unemployed. Immigration laws make it difficult to find employment and the language barrier is immense even for those who legally are permitted to work. My client I met today was only a few years older than me, and he expressed his frustrations with work. Unlike many, he is employed, but he works as a janitor in a coffee shop. His work is tough and often impossible to finish in time because the manager knows he can always replace his type of labor so he is pushed hard. He longs for better work, and I reassure him that if he continues to pursue his GED and his English classes that there is hope for him. I know that immigrants face thousands of obstacles and usually it is the children of immigrants that find "success" in the work field, but my client is still young so hopefully his options will remain open. At the very least, he is alive and is lucky to be so. It gives us both hope.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Week 1 of Kovler
The Marjorie Kovler Center is a small division of Heartland Alliance, a refugee assistance program. The Kovler Center is located in a residential neighborhood, and the building itself is a old convent (which means I both live and work in convents). Many nonprofit programs have bought old convents due to the decline in the number of religious men and women.
The Kovler Center is composed of 19 full-time staff and countless volunteers. Funding largely comes from both the Federal Government as well as several donors. Whenever a client is admitted to the center, the services are available for life. Therefore our center technically serves almost 1,500 people but we typically see about 300 clients in a year. I was shocked by these numbers but even more shocked to learn that torture occurs in over 100 countries (out of 195). The geographical diversity of our clients is staggering.
Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, the Kovler Center seems to center around contradictions. We serve among the most traumatized people in the world yet the work place is very warm and lively. I absolutely love the staff. I work under a Guatemalan immigrant who is among the warmest people I've ever met, and my immediate coworkers are 4 other case managers that are all trilingual. It makes my mediocre French seem pretty pathetic, but the staff and clients appreciate any language skills you possess.
The case managers provide 15 basic services on a rotational basis with each case manager assigned to 3 tasks. For the next three months, I will work with primary care, medicaid and billing. Most of my time is spent scheduling patients with our volunteer doctors and nurse practitioners or calling the local clinic to schedule blood work and EKGs for our clients. The clinic recently passed a rule stating that free services would only be provided to the homeless in the area, and initially, we thought this restriction threatened to deny services to many of our clients. In reality, however, it turned out that most asylum seekers are forced to live with relatives or friends of friends which is technically considered homeless by the federal definition. Asylum seekers strictly do not have the funds to afford housing.
Side note: in case you were curious, I learned the difference between refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees are taken care of by the UN. Normally, large numbers of people will flee a war zone and the UN will place them in other countries. These people will obtain all necessary paperwork through the UN and will be eligible to work once they reach the United States. Asylum seekers, on the other hand, technically enter the country illegally. They tend to be persecuted individuals that had to be smuggled out of the country into another. If they are arrested by immigration services, an immigrant can ask for asylum status. Unlike the illegal immigrants who come for employment, asylum seekers are not immediately deported and are allowed to demonstrate why returning to their country is out of the question. Asylum seekers that we see are 97% successful in their efforts to obtain asylum status because evidence of torture almost always convinces an immigrant judge that asylum is needed. However, the process is long and complicated. Asylum seekers normally wait anywhere from 2 to 10 years before becoming legal and occasionally are not allowed to work until becoming legal.
The work itself is engaging because it is almost non-stop problem solving. Case managers are always trying to find services until the asylum seekers become legal and make it on their own. Most of the services involve housing and, most importantly, psychiatric counseling. Torture is used to empower the government by weakening the individuals that challenge it. The Kovler Center's primary goal is to empower all those that seek services. People who are tortured often completely lose their trust in people as well as their own identity. Both need to be restored if any healing is to take place. I should admit that my work does not directly involve psychiatric work so most of my information comes from The Blindfold's Eyes. Once again, if you are interested in the psychological effects of torture I cannot stress this book enough. It has been a great resource during my first week as I get to know some of my clients.
The Kovler Center is composed of 19 full-time staff and countless volunteers. Funding largely comes from both the Federal Government as well as several donors. Whenever a client is admitted to the center, the services are available for life. Therefore our center technically serves almost 1,500 people but we typically see about 300 clients in a year. I was shocked by these numbers but even more shocked to learn that torture occurs in over 100 countries (out of 195). The geographical diversity of our clients is staggering.
Now that the technical stuff is out of the way, the Kovler Center seems to center around contradictions. We serve among the most traumatized people in the world yet the work place is very warm and lively. I absolutely love the staff. I work under a Guatemalan immigrant who is among the warmest people I've ever met, and my immediate coworkers are 4 other case managers that are all trilingual. It makes my mediocre French seem pretty pathetic, but the staff and clients appreciate any language skills you possess.
The case managers provide 15 basic services on a rotational basis with each case manager assigned to 3 tasks. For the next three months, I will work with primary care, medicaid and billing. Most of my time is spent scheduling patients with our volunteer doctors and nurse practitioners or calling the local clinic to schedule blood work and EKGs for our clients. The clinic recently passed a rule stating that free services would only be provided to the homeless in the area, and initially, we thought this restriction threatened to deny services to many of our clients. In reality, however, it turned out that most asylum seekers are forced to live with relatives or friends of friends which is technically considered homeless by the federal definition. Asylum seekers strictly do not have the funds to afford housing.
Side note: in case you were curious, I learned the difference between refugees and asylum seekers. Refugees are taken care of by the UN. Normally, large numbers of people will flee a war zone and the UN will place them in other countries. These people will obtain all necessary paperwork through the UN and will be eligible to work once they reach the United States. Asylum seekers, on the other hand, technically enter the country illegally. They tend to be persecuted individuals that had to be smuggled out of the country into another. If they are arrested by immigration services, an immigrant can ask for asylum status. Unlike the illegal immigrants who come for employment, asylum seekers are not immediately deported and are allowed to demonstrate why returning to their country is out of the question. Asylum seekers that we see are 97% successful in their efforts to obtain asylum status because evidence of torture almost always convinces an immigrant judge that asylum is needed. However, the process is long and complicated. Asylum seekers normally wait anywhere from 2 to 10 years before becoming legal and occasionally are not allowed to work until becoming legal.
The work itself is engaging because it is almost non-stop problem solving. Case managers are always trying to find services until the asylum seekers become legal and make it on their own. Most of the services involve housing and, most importantly, psychiatric counseling. Torture is used to empower the government by weakening the individuals that challenge it. The Kovler Center's primary goal is to empower all those that seek services. People who are tortured often completely lose their trust in people as well as their own identity. Both need to be restored if any healing is to take place. I should admit that my work does not directly involve psychiatric work so most of my information comes from The Blindfold's Eyes. Once again, if you are interested in the psychological effects of torture I cannot stress this book enough. It has been a great resource during my first week as I get to know some of my clients.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Orientation
Orientation has been a fast-paced blur. Once we arrived it has been non-stop until the last few days. In short, orientation has centered around the five tenets of Amate House which are: community, stewardship, social justice, faith, service. In order to keep the last few days straight, I'll shall organize my blog today in those categories.
Community:
One of the most staggering aspects of this program is its size. Currently, Amate House has 36 volunteers that live in three houses situated around Chicago (ideally) near the work sites. North House is located near Wrigley Field and holds 14 volunteers, Little Village is located in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood about 5 miles west of downtown holds 9 volunteers, and South House (my residence) is located about 5 miles southwest of downtown and holds 13 volunteers.
I soon realized that 13 is a really, really large number. I know that probably sounds obvious to most people, but it really hits home when you go to the store to buy 5 gallons of milk on Sunday, and it doesn't last until Wednesday. When I imagined living in a community, I think I had about 7 people in mind whereas 13 is really a difficult sized group to manage.
Another thing that struck me early on is that this program is striving for more than 13 volunteers merely cohabitating the same space. The tenet of community really emphasizes that my housemates are supposed to mean more to me than any previous living situation. The buzzword commonly used by the staff is "Intentional Community." Initially, that phrased sounded merely redundant, but we truly do have a remarkable program. This quote read to us on the first day has really stuck with me so far:
Community has something to do with being open enough to share weaknesses, to accept one's vulnerability and finitude not only in the secret recesses of one's hear, but also in the presence of others. Paradoxically, that's where the real power of community comes from. -Dick Westley
The 13 of us really strive to open ourselves before each other. Many of our talks have been uncomfortable but powerful. Ultimately, this communial aspect is why I choose Amate House over programs such as Teach For America because I knew that I needed a strong support network for what I wanted to do this year. Social workers have a tremendous burnout rate because their job is demanding. I knew that for a year of service I would need a support network to turn to.
Much of orientation has been filled with discussions and activity focusing on building our community. Some of our more fun activies involved the beach, a low ropes course, etc. The variety of activities at orientation has been nice and made the week fly by while remaining interesting.
Stewardship
The third day centered around the idea of stewardship. Stewarship most frequently involves the following lines from Matthew:
Jesus sent out the twelve after instructing them thus, "Go...to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of God is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons..." etc etc.
The verse to me was always about using the gifts God gave you to better the world. In reality, the verse is also about being good stewards of all gifts given to us, including the earth and all those who inhabit it. We spent the day learning about things such the enviornmental disasters that occurred in South Chicago. Chicago industrial parks were all located on the South Side; plants produced products such as steel, coal (for power) and meat (Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle is about the meat processing plants located in Chicago and the abuses that were occuring). We walked around Little Village and observered parks that were dumping grounds for these factories for years. The people living there now, mostly poor Hispanics, have to constantly fight and lobby the EPA and the former companies to clean up the enviornmental disasters. For example, they examined a site and found that carcinogenic compounds were 1000x higher than what is considered safe. This tenet seeks to make us more aware of the products we buy and where they come from. Homework for you all: check your tags in your clothes and see where they were made. We made a list of all the countries and the list was over a page long for the house. Sweatshop labor is sadly still a major problem.
Faith
We met with a Loyola professor to talk about what he called the Spirituality of Transitions. It was a very interesting presentation about, psychologically and spiritually, what will occur during a state of transistions. Afterwards, we were asked to share in our House our spiritual journey. It was actually an immensely powerful but difficult talk because despite being a theology major, discussing one's faith is immensely stressful and nerve-wracking. It was a very special experience.
Social Justice
*brief interlude: we did our first grocery run before talking about the next tenet. Imagine for a moment shopping with 13 people for a weeks worth of groceries. It was one of the most stressful things I've ever done.
The talks on Social Justice really centered on solidarity and what it truly meant. This blog is getting long so I will summarize our talk with these two quotes:
"Solidarity is not just 'vague compassion or a shallow distress at the misfortune of others' but rather 'a firm and perserving determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and to each individual, because we are really responsibile for all."- Papal documents
"What worries me most is that 'solidarity' is understood as a disposition: one can have it for a while, put it aside for whatever reason, and then pick it up again. I am also worried about the fact that 'solidarity' has come to mean 'agreement with' and that it is given an ephemeral sense of supporting others that has little to do with liberative praxis." - Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
Service
Not much to say here because to me, this is really what the program is about. However, this tenet will likely be the center of most of my blogs from now on. My first day of work is Monday and my posts will focus on my work at the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Survivors of Torture. I HIGHLY recommend a book for everyone interested in my work to read. It is called The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth by Sister Dianna Ortiz. I'm only about 100 pages in (it's a long read) but it was written by an American Nun who was tortured in Guatemala in 1989 and her attempts to return to "normalcy". The truly remarkable part is the woman used the Marjorie Kovler Center in Chicago during her rehabilitation. I actually had to call my boss the same day I read a passage from the book describing her initial call to the same man. It is truly the best source I can offer about the center, but I will warn you it not as easy book to read.
Sorry it was so long! I promise they will be shorter in the future.
Community:
One of the most staggering aspects of this program is its size. Currently, Amate House has 36 volunteers that live in three houses situated around Chicago (ideally) near the work sites. North House is located near Wrigley Field and holds 14 volunteers, Little Village is located in a predominately Hispanic neighborhood about 5 miles west of downtown holds 9 volunteers, and South House (my residence) is located about 5 miles southwest of downtown and holds 13 volunteers.
I soon realized that 13 is a really, really large number. I know that probably sounds obvious to most people, but it really hits home when you go to the store to buy 5 gallons of milk on Sunday, and it doesn't last until Wednesday. When I imagined living in a community, I think I had about 7 people in mind whereas 13 is really a difficult sized group to manage.
Another thing that struck me early on is that this program is striving for more than 13 volunteers merely cohabitating the same space. The tenet of community really emphasizes that my housemates are supposed to mean more to me than any previous living situation. The buzzword commonly used by the staff is "Intentional Community." Initially, that phrased sounded merely redundant, but we truly do have a remarkable program. This quote read to us on the first day has really stuck with me so far:
Community has something to do with being open enough to share weaknesses, to accept one's vulnerability and finitude not only in the secret recesses of one's hear, but also in the presence of others. Paradoxically, that's where the real power of community comes from. -Dick Westley
The 13 of us really strive to open ourselves before each other. Many of our talks have been uncomfortable but powerful. Ultimately, this communial aspect is why I choose Amate House over programs such as Teach For America because I knew that I needed a strong support network for what I wanted to do this year. Social workers have a tremendous burnout rate because their job is demanding. I knew that for a year of service I would need a support network to turn to.
Much of orientation has been filled with discussions and activity focusing on building our community. Some of our more fun activies involved the beach, a low ropes course, etc. The variety of activities at orientation has been nice and made the week fly by while remaining interesting.
Stewardship
The third day centered around the idea of stewardship. Stewarship most frequently involves the following lines from Matthew:
Jesus sent out the twelve after instructing them thus, "Go...to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of God is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons..." etc etc.
The verse to me was always about using the gifts God gave you to better the world. In reality, the verse is also about being good stewards of all gifts given to us, including the earth and all those who inhabit it. We spent the day learning about things such the enviornmental disasters that occurred in South Chicago. Chicago industrial parks were all located on the South Side; plants produced products such as steel, coal (for power) and meat (Upton Sinclair's book The Jungle is about the meat processing plants located in Chicago and the abuses that were occuring). We walked around Little Village and observered parks that were dumping grounds for these factories for years. The people living there now, mostly poor Hispanics, have to constantly fight and lobby the EPA and the former companies to clean up the enviornmental disasters. For example, they examined a site and found that carcinogenic compounds were 1000x higher than what is considered safe. This tenet seeks to make us more aware of the products we buy and where they come from. Homework for you all: check your tags in your clothes and see where they were made. We made a list of all the countries and the list was over a page long for the house. Sweatshop labor is sadly still a major problem.
Faith
We met with a Loyola professor to talk about what he called the Spirituality of Transitions. It was a very interesting presentation about, psychologically and spiritually, what will occur during a state of transistions. Afterwards, we were asked to share in our House our spiritual journey. It was actually an immensely powerful but difficult talk because despite being a theology major, discussing one's faith is immensely stressful and nerve-wracking. It was a very special experience.
Social Justice
*brief interlude: we did our first grocery run before talking about the next tenet. Imagine for a moment shopping with 13 people for a weeks worth of groceries. It was one of the most stressful things I've ever done.
The talks on Social Justice really centered on solidarity and what it truly meant. This blog is getting long so I will summarize our talk with these two quotes:
"Solidarity is not just 'vague compassion or a shallow distress at the misfortune of others' but rather 'a firm and perserving determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and to each individual, because we are really responsibile for all."- Papal documents
"What worries me most is that 'solidarity' is understood as a disposition: one can have it for a while, put it aside for whatever reason, and then pick it up again. I am also worried about the fact that 'solidarity' has come to mean 'agreement with' and that it is given an ephemeral sense of supporting others that has little to do with liberative praxis." - Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz
Service
Not much to say here because to me, this is really what the program is about. However, this tenet will likely be the center of most of my blogs from now on. My first day of work is Monday and my posts will focus on my work at the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Survivors of Torture. I HIGHLY recommend a book for everyone interested in my work to read. It is called The Blindfold's Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth by Sister Dianna Ortiz. I'm only about 100 pages in (it's a long read) but it was written by an American Nun who was tortured in Guatemala in 1989 and her attempts to return to "normalcy". The truly remarkable part is the woman used the Marjorie Kovler Center in Chicago during her rehabilitation. I actually had to call my boss the same day I read a passage from the book describing her initial call to the same man. It is truly the best source I can offer about the center, but I will warn you it not as easy book to read.
Sorry it was so long! I promise they will be shorter in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)