By: Aditi Pawa
Searching for ways to improve community experiences in the U.S. by going abroad
When I consider what it means to study a “global” issue, I generally consider issues that affect all–or at least most–people in the world, issues which have aspects of themselves which can be universalized, understood by people in every corner of the world.
Perhaps this definition makes refugee issues not seem to be particularly “global”; though there is a huge displaced population in the world–about 1 in every 69 people–that percentage still only makes up about 1.5 percent of the human population. But refugees are displaced because of global issues–because of war, unsafe conditions, environmental disasters caused by climate change, food insecurity, and more. And I’d argue it is our responsibility as global citizens to consider and try to improve conditions for refugees precisely because they are citizens of this Earth, affected by global issues just as we all are.
Over the summer, I will spend four weeks volunteering with a Refugee Support group in Athens, Greece through the International Volunteer HQ. Over the course of these four weeks, I will be engaging and assisting young adult and teenage refugees in arts-based extracurricular activities, and observing how these activities are potentially improving their level of comfortability in their new host country, and what specific aspects of these activities are resulting in these improvements, if any are observed.
I’m excited to take on this experience, and to hopefully learn strategies to further help refugees not just within this program, but to take the skills I learn from this program to help refugees across the world, and particularly in the U.S., where protections resources for displaced individuals have been increasingly slashed in the last year and a half. I want to find ways to help people that are receptive to their needs, first and foremost.
I’m very excited to learn more about the refugee community in Athens, and to see how it differs from the refugee community in Tallahassee, a community which I have had the pleasure of getting to know deeply over the past two years. I’m also very excited to learn more about Greece’s history and architecture in my time there, and to get to interact with Greek people and learn more about their perspectives on life, work, and the ways in which they move through the world. I’ve found that perspectives like this vary greatly from country to country, in ways that we wouldn’t expect, and I am always excited for an opportunity to find out more about the way people in different places think about subjects that are largely universal.
There are about three months until I leave. Wish me luck!
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