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About a year ago, as I was getting ready to graduate college, I was planning for my next big adventure, I knew it had to be something impactful and to me a year of service was the most natural course. I completed my AmeriCorps application and began exploring different organizations, and then I found LIFT and knew I had found something special. I remember leaving my interview for the Site Coordinator position and realizing how crushed I would be if I did not get to be a part of this amazing organization, as I was not fortunate enough to be involved with LIFT in college, and at that moment I know I had found something special.
As a Site Coordinator for LIFT-Chicago’s Uptown office, I have the best job I could have ever imagined. I recruit, train and manage an amazing group of college students from Loyola University Chicago who continue to inspire me on a daily basis and this is why I LIFT. The work we do is by no means easy and it is difficult to imagine as a college student you would have to tell someone maybe twice your age, “I’m sorry but it looks like you will not be able to keep your apartment. Let’s look into some emergency shelter options” However, the student advocates in my office and across the network do just that and they do so with so much compassion and empathy that the clients we work for are given a renewed hope, a reason to move on and faith in what lies ahead, no matter how uncertain the future may be.
LIFT is as much about service to our clients as it is about the experience of the college students who help our clients navigate their path out of poverty. My favorite moments within my day are when clients leave their meeting, walk up to the front desk beaming and tell me “I need to me with him/her again, they just made my day!” One particular client, when I ask her how her meeting went, always tells me with a laugh and a huge smile, “Matt, you know I love coming in here! Everyone just makes me feel so empowered and motivated, this is the best appointment I have all week.” It’s always the same and some days it is hard to wrap my head around the impact these students are having, but it ALWAYS gets me up in the morning, excited to see what my day will bring, if no other reason than to get to be around such positive energy, despite often challenging situations.
It’s easy to look at the newspaper and feel hopeless for the direction our world and society is headed. However, when I read everything going on in this world, I am able to maintain hope simply by looking around at the student advocates I work with, if they and I have anything to do with the future direction of our world, we will be just fine.
I LIFT to inspire and motivate the next generation of leaders in the anti-poverty movement. Will you join them?
Monday, April 11, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
It's a broken system: Gender Roles
The world has changed a lot and often quicker than our social institutions can keep up with. Progress is slow in some areas and at times the world seems backwards because of this. When it comes to gender roles the social service industry is drastically behind the curve, stuck in a world of what once was. Yes, at one point, the services were desperately lacking for women and the situation was even worse for single mothers and thus countless services have sprung up, lead by visionaries in their field to address this problem and provide real help where it is needed. (And I will be the first to point out that in general the supply still does not meet the demand.)
In that world, men did not take care of the children if a marriage failed or they were often the ones to abandoned the relationship when a woman became pregnant, the idea of child support was created for just this reason. However, the world has changed and gender roles with it, but the social service sector has yet to catch up.
Today, I witnessed and had the opportunity to meet a single father who was taking care of his 3 year old daughter after his wife passed away. The events in his life threw him into a world where we was both homeless and unemployed. His daughter and himself are living in a homeless shelter, not the ideal environment for a 3 year old, who by the way is the sweetest child ever. His focus was housing and getting his daughter into a better situation first, then and only then would he worry about focusing on himself. For this man his world was his daughter and you could see the love he had for her and the desire to protect her from the second he walked into the room.
It then became time to face the reality, as we entered what we knew would be a vain search. Phone call after phone call resulted in the same answer: "I'm sorry we only take women with children, men are not allowed." It appears we live in a world were men are not expected to be the care givers for their child. In fact, if you are living in poverty, the logical choice (if the mother is still present) is for the father to abandon the situation all together so the remainder of the family has a better chance of getting in to some sort of housing - an action I have seen several men have to take with no other options left for themselves or their family. It is sad that we are put in a situation where you often has to suggest splitting the family up as a means to get by and achieve basic necessities.
When this action occurs a stereotype is perpetuated and the system justifies itself. These fathers are then often given no other option then to live in a Men's Hotel, a place that has been described to me as both unsafe and drug ridden. This environment is especially detrimental to individuals who are recovering from an addiction. Thus, the cycle of poverty is recreated and for those lost within the system relapse is almost a guarantee.
And what about the loving father and his daughter? When will the system catch up? When will these individuals have someone speak up for them and allow this struggling father to give his daughter the life he so desperately wants to provide and the life they both deserve? When will people begin to realize that males care about their family too?
The current social service system and the countless agencies that make it up were created with the best of intentions, but it is time for change. It is time for people to realize that men are no longer the enemy and that they are not the only ones abandoning their children (countless women now sadly take this action as well.) We need an inclusive system, one that looks at the individual, at each situation separately . We need a system that can adapt beyond gender, because, as any anthropologist will tell you, gender will adapt to the society around it and in some cases change society. We need a country and system that realizes that gender is not static, now it's just a question of who will take the lead and it seems in this case the leaders have yet to emerge.
In that world, men did not take care of the children if a marriage failed or they were often the ones to abandoned the relationship when a woman became pregnant, the idea of child support was created for just this reason. However, the world has changed and gender roles with it, but the social service sector has yet to catch up.
Today, I witnessed and had the opportunity to meet a single father who was taking care of his 3 year old daughter after his wife passed away. The events in his life threw him into a world where we was both homeless and unemployed. His daughter and himself are living in a homeless shelter, not the ideal environment for a 3 year old, who by the way is the sweetest child ever. His focus was housing and getting his daughter into a better situation first, then and only then would he worry about focusing on himself. For this man his world was his daughter and you could see the love he had for her and the desire to protect her from the second he walked into the room.
It then became time to face the reality, as we entered what we knew would be a vain search. Phone call after phone call resulted in the same answer: "I'm sorry we only take women with children, men are not allowed." It appears we live in a world were men are not expected to be the care givers for their child. In fact, if you are living in poverty, the logical choice (if the mother is still present) is for the father to abandon the situation all together so the remainder of the family has a better chance of getting in to some sort of housing - an action I have seen several men have to take with no other options left for themselves or their family. It is sad that we are put in a situation where you often has to suggest splitting the family up as a means to get by and achieve basic necessities.
When this action occurs a stereotype is perpetuated and the system justifies itself. These fathers are then often given no other option then to live in a Men's Hotel, a place that has been described to me as both unsafe and drug ridden. This environment is especially detrimental to individuals who are recovering from an addiction. Thus, the cycle of poverty is recreated and for those lost within the system relapse is almost a guarantee.
And what about the loving father and his daughter? When will the system catch up? When will these individuals have someone speak up for them and allow this struggling father to give his daughter the life he so desperately wants to provide and the life they both deserve? When will people begin to realize that males care about their family too?
The current social service system and the countless agencies that make it up were created with the best of intentions, but it is time for change. It is time for people to realize that men are no longer the enemy and that they are not the only ones abandoning their children (countless women now sadly take this action as well.) We need an inclusive system, one that looks at the individual, at each situation separately . We need a system that can adapt beyond gender, because, as any anthropologist will tell you, gender will adapt to the society around it and in some cases change society. We need a country and system that realizes that gender is not static, now it's just a question of who will take the lead and it seems in this case the leaders have yet to emerge.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
In a funk...
So I looked up from my work the other day and I felt kind of lost. For various reasons lately I've completely thrown myself into my work. It's provided a distraction that I've wrapped myself up in so I don't have to think about anything else. If I do well at work than I have succeeded and that's all I need to focus on doing, or so I've told myself. I've avoided personal reflection, I've avoided telling others how I'm really feeling and kept it all really surface level. This is the biggest flaw of mine, I know it and I have no solution to it.
I listen, all day I listen to clients, to volunteers, to friends, I listen and take it all in and provide support back, don't get me wrong it's something I love doing. I have real trouble taking the answer to "How are you doing" farther than anything but good or fine. As long as I respond that way I avoid having to go any further into analyzing my feelings and everything going on in my life. And now I have come to the conclusion that I lack any real personal connection with anyone around me, great right? Thus my funk.
So, when I looked up from my work the other day, all of this came crashing down on me and I felt lost. I am constantly surrounded by inspiring people; my volunteers, my close friends and those I serve, and I feel as if I do not fit in to this group. I feel lost and I feel beyond alone because of it. I fail at focusing on personal care and avoid doing it at all costs. Why? Because than I never need to confront my feelings and thus I throw my myself into everything else going on in my life. This has opened up my eyes a lot and I need to shift my priorities. For the first time in my life one of those priorities needs to be me. That's going to be one of the hardest shifts I'll ever make, especially when I focus my entire life on service to everyone else around me.
Well wish me luck!
I listen, all day I listen to clients, to volunteers, to friends, I listen and take it all in and provide support back, don't get me wrong it's something I love doing. I have real trouble taking the answer to "How are you doing" farther than anything but good or fine. As long as I respond that way I avoid having to go any further into analyzing my feelings and everything going on in my life. And now I have come to the conclusion that I lack any real personal connection with anyone around me, great right? Thus my funk.
So, when I looked up from my work the other day, all of this came crashing down on me and I felt lost. I am constantly surrounded by inspiring people; my volunteers, my close friends and those I serve, and I feel as if I do not fit in to this group. I feel lost and I feel beyond alone because of it. I fail at focusing on personal care and avoid doing it at all costs. Why? Because than I never need to confront my feelings and thus I throw my myself into everything else going on in my life. This has opened up my eyes a lot and I need to shift my priorities. For the first time in my life one of those priorities needs to be me. That's going to be one of the hardest shifts I'll ever make, especially when I focus my entire life on service to everyone else around me.
Well wish me luck!
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