VISTA Training: Day 2

Our second day of service started bright and early at 7am, and it didn’t take us too long to get down to work. Shortly after setting ground rules for how the sessions would run (i.e. be respectful, give others a chance to speak, etc.) we started talking about poverty. We discussed how we felt about poverty, how society at large felt about poverty, and many of the assumptions that are made about people living in poverty. As soon as someone dropped the word “meritocracy” it was clear that many people in the room had been in a Sociology class or two, but some of the more interesting insights came from those who hadn’t. One girl mentioned that her background was in Marketing and was really interested in finding out about meritocracy and classism. We also talked about how Capitalism depends on an exploitable middle class and the more economic views of poverty. Last but not least, we had some first hand accounts of poverty and what it means for the individual. These discussions set a really solid foundation for our discussions over the next few days.

After lunch we came back to the rooms recharged and ready to talk about how we can effect positive change in the communities we’ll be working in. This was my favorite session! We learned about different theories of change and the strengths and weaknesses of each. We focused on 5 theories: Individual circumstance, cultural (not just race and ethnicity but drug culture, gang culture, etc.), geographic, structural, and cumulative. I tend to lean more towards the structural and cumulative theories, which say, respectively, that we need to change our social, political, and economic institutions to relieve poverty and that we need to take a holistic approach to the unique combination of forces that keeps people living in poverty.

Later in the day we had a very informative session about the business of national service and we learned about health care options, qualifying for food stamps, and when to start planning for life after service. All the information kind of made my head spin but it was helpful and I have since taken care of all of this business.

After dinner we had an Alumni meet and greet where we met former VISTAs and got to network and talk about life after VISTA. During this session we also got to hear from the AMAZING Cati Wolfgang, the Chief Service Officer of Philadelphia and a former VISTA. She shared some of the amazing opportunities she had after being a VISTA and how it inspired her to pursue a career in National Service. Well, it seems like she was pretty successful and after a strategically placed tweet she is one of my newest followers on twitter!  What would I do without social media?