As the year is coming to a close, our group was able to work on the final report together and reflect on what we’ve learned from the VIP experience this past year. We realized that although we were not able to carry out our original project as intended, we were able to come together in other ways to serve. Additionally, we experienced how difficult it is in the real world to get a project off the ground. It is so easy in college to live in a bubble of obliviousness, only focusing on ourselves and forgetting about what life is like outside of college. Most of school life is convenient and happens smoothly because other people have worked out the details of our schedules, housing, food, etc. In trying to start our tutoring project, we had to get approval from so many people, figure out liability issues, work out scheduling, and then found out that we couldn’t do it anyway because those with whom we were in communication felt that the project housing children needed a more sustainable program. They felt that it would cause psychological trouble to the children if we worked with them for a year, built relationships, and then disappeared at the end of the year. For this reason, we sought other means of learning since our original project was not going to succeed as planned. By tutoring through an already existing program, reading books on issues related to poverty, and attending lectures on similar topics, we were able to find alternative ways to grow and serve.
Written by Erika Pinkerton
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