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Servant leadership Forum members, summer interns transform Atlanta

What can three people do in sixteen weeks? Quite a lot if they are motivated, creative, and committed. Three members of the 2003-2004 Ethics and Servant Leadership Forum undertook a relatively simple task that has begun to transform both the Atlanta Metro Juvenile Detention Center and the volunteer opportunities at Emory. These three students, Anita Husen, Eric Fyfe, and Leila Barker (and joined by colleagues Veena Guishani, Candance Chan and Ogedi Atukuwpa) started attending volunteer Saturdays at the Center and recognized the need for more mentors.

What began as a series of simple visits by the three, then the five of them, soon became a college-wide endeavour. The students not only undertook individual mentoring of youth at the Center, but they also put together a talent show and brought in Emory student musicians, dancers, and others to perform for the youth. Seeing the tremendous need at the Center, the students also held a series of trainings for Emory students interested in becoming mentors as well. About 60-70 students went through this training and have begun mentoring at the juvenile center. Anita Husen, one of the students organizing the project, received on behalf of her colleagues the Joel Andrew Geller Humanitarian Service Award. This $1000 award, designed to support students committed to undertaking community service, was used to further the work of the Servant Leadership Forum students at the juvenile detention center.

The students, unwilling to rest on their individual successes, also undertook a series of activities designed to formalize and institutionalize the project. The result is that MetroVision has been picked up by Emory Volunteers and beginning with the 2004-2005 academic year will be a formal part Emory University’s commitment to serving the Atlanta community.

Summer Internships

This year the Servant Leadership Summer received nearly sixty applications for its ten internship slots. While the number signified a marked increase over previous years, even more impressive was the quality of the applicants. Easily half of the applicants could have been accepted into the program with absolutely no hesitation on the part of any of the selection committee’s members. After careful reflection and conversation the committee identified its final candidates who were placed in nine organizations through the Atlanta area.

An additional exciting component of the application process was the number of graduate students who applied, including one first-year medical student. The expansion of the program into working with students from schools and programs previously unrepresented bodes well, both for its future and for the expansion of servant leadership into increasing numbers of locations and fields.
The ten students selected this year worked with a variety of organizations and undertook numerous tasks and projects.

• Wiatta Thomas—9-5, Atlanta Working Women
• Veena Gursahani—Daemon Records
• Astrid Suantio—Refugee Family Services
• Robert Brown—Bobby Dodd Industries
• Michael Thompson—Hands on Atlanta
• May Hui—Georgia Justice Project
• Molly Harrington—Independent project, Emory University Mental Health Campaign
• Victor McCracken—Georgia Avenue Community Ministries/Georgia Avenue Food Cooperative
• Hugo Aparicio—St. Joseph Mercy Care Services
• Jacob Meyer—St. Joseph Mercy Care Services

From helping Daemon Records to further the cultural reach of independent musicians to helping Georgia Justice Project improve its programs designed to ease the transition of its clients from prison to the world outside of jail, all the summer interns found themselves dealing with real problems and undertaking very important work. In the process they learned more about the complexity of the world and the multiple forces—systemic and individual—that affect so many individuals in Atlanta and the world, from mentally disabled teens to single, working women.

More importantly these students were transformed in their learning and in their approaches to the world around them. While the difficulty of the work may have tarnished some of the glow of idealism, it also equipped the students with a deeper commitment and awareness, an awareness of what they did not yet know. As one participant commented, eighty percent of the material covered “human and social issues that I was not aware of previously… [The program] made me much more knowledgeable and mature as a person.” A teacher can ask for little more than that.

[ Posted by Edward Queen at August 23, 2004 10:53 AM | More Ethics and Servant Leadership articles ]

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