Mattie Smyth

Part VI: Service and Social Justice Reflection

 

 

Section I

 

A lot of times I find myself caught up in all that Creighton is and has to offer that I forget about the outside world of Omaha and how there are a lot of struggling people stemming from various social justice issues. Creighton is a wonderful place, but full of a lot of very privileged individuals including myself. However, this makes it perfect for us to do service. I am so thankful FLP has a service aspect. Service is a cornerstone that is integral in the development on any leader. A leader is someone for the people they surround themselves with and going to weekly sites helps us be in solidarity with the community to learn how to be someone for them in the future.

 

Through service we learn more about ourselves and the world around us. I have had my eyes opened to a world of impoverished children who do not have the same opportunities I had as a kid. That breaks my heart. First semester I went to the Hope Center. We helped the elementary kids every Monday with their homework, but a lot of times it turned into a disciplinary role I was playing. The kids did not see the importance of working hard in school, the value of knowledge, or the ways in which an education can help them thrive. I came to realize that those values were just never implanted in their heads because they don’t have the support at home like I did. I’m sure most of their parents didn’t go to college and/or aren’t around very much to help them with schoolwork. What the students needed was encouragement, a role model, and a face of a college student telling them that they could make it. I tried my best to be that for them as I would attempt to break up fights, dancing to inappropriate songs, or cheating on homework. I let the kids know, in as simple terms as possible, that they could make it to college if they wanted to. I think the Hope Center is a perfect name for the institution because that is exactly what the kids need, hope.

 

Through my experience at the Hope Center I learned a lot about myself. I realized that most of the world is not as privileged as I am and because of that, I feel like it is my duty to help others get to where I am. Second semester I went to Precious Memories Daycare. While I wasn’t attempting to teach multiplication to kids while telling them to stop yelling at each other, I was playing with them and being a friend. These kids needed the same thing as the ones in the Hope Center; a role model, a friend, someone who cared about them. The diversity in Omaha is extremely visible once you step outside of the ‘Creighton bubble.’ It is important for us to experience these differences with others so that we can understand where they are coming from better. By serving others, my servant leadership style has been maximized.

 

Section II

 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr couldn’t have put it any better when he said that “the difference between social service and social justice” is that social service “works to alleviate hardship” while social justice “aims to eradicate the root causes of that hardship.”I truly believe that through FLP we are doing both. By going to Precious Memories Daycare every week we are doing service to them, however it is all part of a larger social justice issue that those children don’t have appropriate role models in their lives. By playing with them weekly it is service, but by being there week after week after week, seeing their situations, being a role model for their future, and advocating on their behalf to the greater community, we are taking part in social justice. Social justice is in a way a service. It’s almost like how a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square. Social justice is the square. Service is a rectangle because not always are people trying to eradicate the deeper problem, they are only scratching the service and making temporary changes.