Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Preparing for Project Homeless Connect
As you prepare for Project Homeless Connect, reflect on your expectations for Friday’s event. What do you think the day will be like? What do expect to learn? What have you already learned about homelessness or poverty that you think prepares you for volunteering? What did you learn from the volunteer training session? If you’re feeling any anxiety, apprehension, or nervousness about the day, please reflect on these feelings, too. Why do you think you feel that way?
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I think Project Homeless connect will be a very good experience. I think the day will be long and hard but I am looking forward to it. I expect to learn a lot about someone who is struggling with homelessness. I expect to be with one person and get to know that person. Hopefully the I get along with the client I get. I have already learned a lot about homelessness and poverty through past experiences. I have been on a mission trip to mexico where I saw people living in poverty and spent a week helping them build houses and working at an orphanage. I have also volunteered at homeless shelters and served lunch. These are good experiences but I think project homeless connect will be different. I learned at the volunteer session that many of these homeless people are probably homeless due to the economic crunch the country is in. I am kind of nervous, I hope my client and I get along during the whole process. I don't really want to tell my client that they only will have time for about 3 services because I think they should get access to all of them. Otherwise I feel excited to help people that have fallen on hard times and I think it will be a very good experience.
ReplyDeleteI predict the day to be a hectic one. The trainers were saying we might get 1000 people walking in those doors.. That is going to be insane. I do, however, think it will be rewarding. I expect to hear people's stories. I expect to feel sympathetic, I expect to feel guilty for going to DU, but also really glad because 1. I could be there for them and 2. because it means that I am not in their position.
ReplyDeleteI don't think what we have learned in class is going to 'prepare' me any better than those coming in just as volunteers. I think this kind of an experience is going to be personal and impossible to gauge before hand. I think everyone will get something different, and so preparing is has to be a little vague.
The training really only helped us know where things are and the run-down logistics of the event, which are helpful, it will make the hecticness as previously described a bit more manageable.
I think I am most nervous about guilt. I go through phases of being really affected by the knowledge that I am ahead in the race of life, just because of where, and to whom, I was born. I came to terms with it earlier in the year, but I know it is just waiting to pounce on me again. So I am worried about that, but I will find a way to grapple with it, I will conquer the guilt.
I've participated in many different volunteering activities for the homeless in the past. As I've stated in earlier posts, community service has taken up a good amount of my time, and I've volunteered at quite a few shelters and soup kitchens beforehand. A lot of this volunteering has had to do with mass interaction, where rather than talking and helping someone individually out, I would be serving food or gathering items for an entire group of homeless at the place I was volunteering. I also have had a few experiences where I interacted individually with others during volunteering; the majority of the time this was with children, playing with them and trying my best to make them smile and have a good time.
ReplyDeleteThe difference that PHC brings to my volunteering history is that I will be working the entire day with one individual. Even though I have worked individually with children before, PHC will bring something new to my list of volunteering activities. Having the responsibility to relay all the possible services and do my best to make sure my client gets use of all the services (or at least his or her top 3) is something different.
The training session also pointed out how it will be a different experience for me, especially the responsibility I will have. They mainly pointed out where all the services will be and at what time global services (such as lunch) will be served. It's mainly my responsibility to ensure I know where I am going and can ensure my client receives the services he or she would like to receive that day. It thus can bring a little bit of anxiety for the day, as it's pretty easy to go to a soup kitchen knowing my job is to put the food on the plate and serve it to a line of those in need, but when I have a responsibility to make one person's experience at PHC a good and productive one, it has a little more pressure and just makes me want to make sure I know everything about what that day entails. I look forward to it, however, and to hopefully connecting well with someone new.
I think the day will be rather hectic, but fun. I'm hoping that its uplifting, and that people feel great when they leave with a job or a resume, or some towels and a pair of shoes. I'm hoping to be paired up with someone my age, just so I can relate more with them. I'm pretty easy-going around people I don't know, and I hope that I'm not so nervous about screwing up which station to go to next that I appear unfriendly or something.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest thing I look forward to is the smile on the faces of the people that I'm helping out. I know that homeless people don't get many happy days in that situation, so maybe this will be one of the few times when they're happy, when the light at the end of tunnel is visible.
I'm hoping to learn about the lives of the people I'm helping. I want to learn their stories, how they got to where they are, and why. I'm particularly interested in hearing stories from people my age - I just need to be reminded of the world outside my bubble (DU can be a rather small and sheltered universe).
The single biggest concern I have is how I appear and act towards the people in my charge. I would hate to look like some pretentious douche who decided to volunteer solely for my own benefit, to make myself feel better or something. I just want to be a nice guy doing a nice thing for some people...I guess I've always harbored jealousy to those better off than me, and I'm just projecting those feelings onto person who have it worse than myself.
Or maybe I'm worrying to much about myself and not enough about the people I'm supposed to help out. :/
Although I have volunteered with many different organizations before, I don’t believe that I have ever participated in something like Project Homeless Connect. I’m bracing myself for a long, hard day, one filled with many eye-opening stories that are filled with bad luck and hard times. I’m expecting many people to be first time homeless people because that’s what I was warned of at the training. I think that they will be frustrated and tired, with many people putting all of their hopes into the day and the services.
ReplyDeleteLooking at what I know already about homelessness, I believe that many people will be willing to work hard and wait in the long lines in order to try and make their life, or the lives of the people in their family, better. I was informed that there will be mental health volunteers walking around during Project Homeless Connect which is something that I believe is good but it is something that I’m apprehensive about as well. I know that there are homeless people out there who are mentally handicapped, however, I don’t know how I would feel walking around with them or putting them off on the people in the white shirts. What if they’re not mentally handicapped and are just tired and cranky? What if I mistake someone?
That fear of the day is only coupled with the fear of becoming overwhelmed and not helping someone accomplish all that they need to. At the training, we were told to ask our client their top three priorities, but I am worried about not being able to help them accomplish even those three things. I know it’s going to be crazy and confusing for me, and I can only begin to imagine their feelings, so I am only praying that I can do everything I can in order to help my client(s).
Expectations for Friday:
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't have many expectations. I have a visual in my mind that its probably going to be a room full of people packed in really tightly without very much room to move. Other than that, I don't think I have any other ideas in my mind for what the day will look like. I more just visualize it being a really unique experience that will hopefully be unlike anything I have ever done.
I feel like the day will be interesting. Again, I have that visual that its going to be really packed full of people. But other then that, I have no idea what it will be or feel like.
I expect to learn insight into someones lives as well as into my own. I would imagine that something about this Friday will have a deep impact and I hope to equally challenge my self and my perspectives on life as well as gain insight into an aspect of life that effects millions of people.
With things like this, I honestly don't think much that I have learned recently is going to have prepared me much. I mean, I enjoyed learning about the statistics and diffrent aspects to homelessness; And I also know that having an education on the matter will help me be more prepared to take on the day; but I also know that what ever hasn't suncken in and become instinctual probably isn't going to help me much. I just don't know which things I learned are versus which things are just facts.
The training session was interesting. Randal was our key note speaker and I have already met and spoken to him from having been involved in some of the planning meetings for PHC. He appeared to be then and still is a really interesting gentleman with a unique insight to homelessness. Things that I learned from the training would mostly include a deeper understanding of the services that will be being offered during the course of the day.
As far as my feelings towards Friday goes, the only apprehension I have is being able to make it until the end of the day. After PHC, I have other functions that I have been helping to plan and I'm a bit nervous that I'm not going to stop moving and running around until around midnight or 2 am. Other then that, I'm really excited to be able to see everything in action that I know so many people have been working so hard on.
As Project Homeless Connect is fast approaching, I begin to wonder what it will be like. Although I’m nervous about it, I feel as though it will be a great experience. I think the day might be a bit overwhelming, since it deals with everything that we have been talking about for the last few weeks. I would imagine that it will probably hit me very hard to see people that are struggling because it’s always made me upset to see people struggling and feel helpless. However, since the situation is different, this event is there to help out all these individuals, so the feelings of helplessness, might not be as strong.
ReplyDeleteThrough what I’ve learned in this class, I feel like a have descent knowledge on the subject of poverty and homelessness. I know that homeless people aren’t just lazy bums, they are people that might have once had a home and a good job, and yet something went terribly wrong. Knowing that makes me feel compassionate towards what they are going through, that’s why at Homeless Connect I will try my best to help out my client in whatever he/she might need in order to better his/her life. During the training session, I felt like I didn’t learn too much. I mean, I did get the understanding of where things will be and what you should do if you have problems. It was kind of like that outline of the day. However, I felt like this class has done a lot more to prepare me for the experience than the training session did.
I’m really looking forward to Friday. I hope that I will be able to help out whomever my client may be and that I’ll also be able to understand a bit more of what they are going through. Yes, I am nervous about the event, because they are pairing me up with a completely random person that I will have to spend many hours with, but I’m sure that it will be a good experience no matter who the person might be.
My expectations for Project Homeless Connect on Friday are to find many different type of people that need different types of services. I think that there will be many people who are willing to make a change in their life to try to overcome homelessness. Over the past few weeks we have been reading many different sources about homelessness, so trying to figure out an exact expectation is hard. It all depends on the type of person that I get. I expect to learn a lot more from this experience to add to what I have learned already from all the readings. These readings show many different sides of homelessness so I expect to see many different type of people and learn more about their own personal situation. I think that learning about the different types of situations before will make it easier to talk to the people at this event because you don’t know their personal story. Before, homeless people on the streets were just homeless people in my eyes, and now I know a lot more information this topic, so it’s a whole new view for me. This class has helped to prepare me for this event because I know more on the topic of homelessness than I have ever known before. Knowing how there are many different types of situations before going there, I don’t know what to expect from the people that I help and gives me the opportunity to learn more about someone’s life that I would not have been able too. This class gave me all the information needed to be able to go and talk to different people and know more about the situations that they can possibly be living in.
ReplyDeleteThe training session really helped because it showed what types of services that they will have and where they are located. This information is really important to make the day go by easier. Also, it showed how people come to get the help they need and how they are willing to better their situation. This training session got me excited to go through this experience, but I am still a little nervous. I want to be able to help the people the best I can, and I am nervous about not knowing what to do or say to the person.
I think the day of Project Homeless Connect would be like “busy.” I said that because I think on that day lot of people would be there. It is my first experience with the project, so I don’t know what to do or what I should do. I only have some basic ideas about what I would be doing with the client, but I don’t know how the place would be like. I expect to learn some clients’ experiences of being a homeless person. I just hoping those clients are not too hard to help with, like asking some complicate questions that I had no idea about. The thing I learned from the training session is that they sound like the project is a big deal and it would be easy to do for them, but I think I would be hard. I am feeling kind of nervous now about the Project Homeless Connect. I feel that way is because it is my first experience with the homeless people, and I had no idea about what I would be doing, even though, I had some ideas of what I should be doing.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I have done Project Homless Connect before, I am still a bit apprehensive and nervous to work it this year. While my experience last year was quite eye-openning and heavy, it was a good experience non-the-less. I spent the day with a middle-aged woman who had been drifting from residence to residence. She was very nice and open about her personnal life, and seemed to appreciate my efforts. I remember she had been through some domestic abuse issues, along with some other struggles throughout her life. However, as we walked from station to station for assistance, it became quite evident how difficult it was to receive help that actually made a difference. At one point, she began to argue with a service representative over her eligibility. She had not slept on the street that night and therefore was not deemed homeless. It just showed her raw emotion and the reality of the situation. It became quite evident to me through both my client's situation as well as through my own wandering eyes, how many people were at this event in search of solid and significant help. They were taking the initiative to improve their lives, but did all these people really leave with a new plan of action, or provided with housing or food, or the required identification to seek out jobs? I never quite understood homelessness and I never before had such a relationship with someone homeless. I hoped for the best for my client and I gave her a hug as she departed for the lifestyle she had been fighting to get away from all day.
ReplyDeleteThis experience, and all the knowledge about the situation in the world, sill does not seem to prepare me for the event again. I still find that I am anxious and a bit apprehensive to work with another client. Although I feel slightly more prepared in what is offered and how to deal with the people, each person is different and has a different situation or story, so how can one be truely prepared? It should be interesting to see how this years experience compares to last years and how it effects me on a personal level the second time.
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ReplyDeleteI am not sure what to expect on Friday. I am anticipating that it will be one of my most difficult volunteer experiences. Difficult because I have only one day to try and provide vital services to help my client leave homelessness. Before, none of my volunteering had quite the urgency that this event has. So, I do feel a large amount of anxiety, but it is centered around my fears of not being able to provide all the help that my client needs. This is a large event and my first time participating; I hope I don't screw anything up.
ReplyDeleteWhile volunteering, I hope to learn more about the root of homelessness. A lot of the focus on homelessness seems to be directed towards extricating people from the streets, but not as much on preventing people from going to the streets.
At the volunteer training session, I was surprised to learn how long the guest speaker was homeless; seventeen years if I heard correct. I thought it was pretty much impossible to leave homelessness after that amount of time.
As I have never been to anything like PHC, I’m both nervous and looking forward to it. In the training yesterday, the PHC organizers talked a lot of possible situations and difficulties that would happen on Friday. For example, your client may not know what exactly he or she needs so you have to help them figure it out before. Or you may have language problems helping immigrants so you will have to be more patient to listen to their needs. I have applied for bi-lingual volunteering. It’ll be really cool if I can serve a Chinese speaking client on that day and I hope this kind of special language service can better help clients find what they need.
ReplyDeleteSince a large number of people are expected to show up on Friday, the situation will probably be a little confusing. I feel I should spend some time learning about my responsibilities so that I can be a better guide on that day.
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ReplyDeleteIt's a good chance to meet different people and hear their stories from them. Personally, I like to meet different people and talk to them. Not only we need to this project homeless connect but also we can view the society at different angles. Most homeless people have no way to speak out their lives, no one fathom their feelings. So PHC7 will be a good chance for them, not only we can help them out and also hear their voices. I am ready and I will try my best to help as much as I can to them. I heard a story from my friend who did it last year. There was one client did not want any kind of job offers, but a tobacco, not sanwich but a five dollar bill. I am not sure if I will meet a person like this or not, I just feel weird that PHC is a great opportunity to get rid of homeless, but why sone people still act same as they do before. I do not know how to persuade them to get rid of.
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