This past week was my first full week of my internship, and my first time helping with all the programs AFSC does in the local community. On Tuesday we did community asset mapping with the kids in the Help Increase the Peace class and on Thursday we worked in the garden and planned what we want to do with it in the coming growing season at the continuation school. The kids were all really great and I'm looking forward to getting to know all of them.
Grant writing is a valuable skill and I'm glad that I'll get the chance to learn how to do it at AFSC, but the best part of the job will definitely be working with the youth.
And we are finished with our first class already! We start Urban Religious Movements on Wednesday. We have tomorrow off, so we're going to the beach as a group.
Berit and I have been doing a lot of research on the Occupy Wall Street movement and went down to City Hall today after church and looked around the Occupy LA camp. We accidentally ended up in a meeting of the actions committee which was really interesting. I've never been in a meeting like it before- everyone was sitting on the steps of City Hall, but it was incredibly organized and there was no clear leader but everyone was using hand signals to communicate their views on the ideas being discussed and to keep the group on the same page. We went back tonight to the general assembly and spent some time talking to some people while we were waiting for it to start. The assembly itself was tedious and there were a number of people that got up to speak that didn't really have anything to say, but that's the nature of the democratic process. The group is incredibly varied- at the meeting of the actions committee I couldn't pin point one particular age group, race, or socioeconomic bracket. And while there are certainly a number of strange people, or people that are just jumping on the bandwagon to promote their own cause, there are a number of really interesting and intelligent people making things happen in Occupy LA and I really enjoyed being in the group and getting a feel for it. The spirit of camaraderie was really unique and we were approached many times and had many conversations that wouldn't have happened in a different social setting. The cause has really brought a huge cross section of people together and they are engaging each other in uncommon ways, so if the movement itself doesn't do much for the political climate, I will consider its ability to unify a success in and of itself.
