If you look for community, you will surely find it
By: Noraly Paul
For the past few weeks I truly have seen my community through a new pair of eyes. I have had my previous beliefs and ideas challenged while also gaining new perspectives. This was simply done through listening and talking to new people. People younger and older than me. I have gladly been able to go to civic meetings, phone banking, and webinar educational meetings. These have truly allowed me to expand my mind and be around like minded individuals. Learning about the rules and order of policies, economic development, local government officials, and most importantly the communities perspective on all happening in Miami. Before Global Scholars, I didn’t know I could be in the rooms I’m entering now. Speaking to community members about my ideas, concerns, and questions. This only makes me learn more and I’m truly grateful for that.
For active role data collection, I have decided to use both physical, audio, and digital documentation. An active role means I’m collecting and actively listening to the information and thinking before I write it down. Adding my interpretation. Keeping handwritten notes during webinars, phone banking, and conversations I have with important individuals from the non-profit I’m volunteering with (with consent of course) allow me to get that information right there in then while it is fresh in my mind. Journaling also allows me to reflect on my days so I am able to write my feelings alongside my data for recollection and how I am changing and learning throughout the summer. Audio documentation is for my interview so I can actively listen and ask questions without having to stop to write notes. I also really enjoy photo documentation to give that visual side to my research because photos can truly speak for you. So, taking photos at the civic academy events is a great form of documenting each session.
My personal perspective and the community I’m engaging with are honestly the same. We share similar concerns about the cost of living, increased population, over development in marginalized communities, extreme heat etc. Even the theoretical perspectives in my lit review matches our concerns and truly points out how many of us in the civic academy meetings felt. But, I do notice that there are gaps in our prioritization for certain issues or beliefs due to differences in age. In the first civic academy meeting I went to in Westchester, FL, it was me and two other women who were our ages out of twenty older individuals. I was shocked to see not many people my age present. But, in the second meeting I went to in Naranja, FL had much more than twenty individuals of both men and women. There were so many younger individuals than older ones. It was really interesting to see how the same even had different individuals, different cities, opinions, but shared a common interest of wanting to help our community.
Brunch at GreenStreet Cafe est.1990
Famously upholding the European philosophy of offering a social meeting place for everyone. Has a mirror inscription statement of: “Where there is Love, there is Life” by Mahatma Gandhi
My process includes getting my personal notepad and the paper with information given to me, and writing down my active role notes. I try to get some quotes, facts, statistics, and honestly all the information relevant to my research project. Also, including a summarization of what I learned, information given, and the environment I am in is beneficial to my reflection later on. Even using the resources they give to research and add more notes when home allows for me to further my understanding and personal plans I can do after the meeting. Strategies I can employ would include gathering all my different forms of data and getting them onto one digital document. Such as google docs and having a folder on my mac with my summer data documentation. This allows all my documents to be in one space where I can reach for easily and edit when I do my analysis.
Session 1 of Civic Academy Meeting in Naranja, FL.
HSF House Blogs 