Love and Service
In the summer of 2017, I had a chance to intern with New American Pathways as an Operations Intern. New American Pathways is a successful refugee resettlement agency in Atlanta. In my first week, I was amazed about how the work environment was like a family place. When I paid more attention, I learned how much staff members have to do in order to have an immigrant well settled. This made me more curious and I wanted to know what goes on in the background in order to have such success. I came to learn that all it takes is love. Love is not a qualification one can take and employ in every field, although it is an important aspect of human life. Although New American Pathways, like any other nonprofit organization, faces challenges of limited resources, the love they put in their work is immeasurably another force behind their success. They take time to understand the behaviors of their clients and determine how to serve each of them. It does not matter if someone is tempered (as a result of experience) or not
Knowing that at the internship is a place of learning, I made myself flexible and offered to be helping with tasks that needed to be done especially with immigrants’ walk-in days of the week. While interning with the operations department, I volunteered to work at the reception in order to enhance my experience. While working at the reception, I observed behaviors of human nature of selfishness where everyone wanted to be served immediately without considering who came first. Some expected me to listen to them and do what they wanted because they were elders. This is how some cultures are. At this internship, I was first challenged culturally as I did not know how to send people back and tell them to stay organized in the order of their arrival. However, I learned how to communicate assertively while being mindful of the people I was serving and their needs. Although talking assertively to an elder person can be considered disrespectful in my culture, I learned that American culture different from mine. I also learned more ways of approaching situations in different settings.
My identity as an intern and my responsibility at the site did not only teach me to love my work and those I am serving others, but also to be supportive in every way I could while at my internship site. In fact, the experience I got from working at New American Pathways, both office work and the interactions with people while working at the reception increased my love for public service.
This experience relates to learning outcomes:
Communicate effectively through writing and speaking, especially across cultural or linguistic differences
Articulate and appraise problems and solutions from multiple perspectives, critically considering diverse sources of information
