I volunteered to contribute to Integrando a Mexico because I wanted to make a difference in some way, in some part of the world, but I was fed up with the all too popular aid programs that benefit the volunteer far more than the community he or she is serving. I’d accepted the general naivete of wanting to have an impact, to change the world, or whatever abstract desire for good motivates social work, but I at least wanted to focus such innocent willpower on a legitimate program with farsighted goals. So I signed up for Integrando a Mexico, because it aimed not to strive for the quick idealized social action people like me might have first imagined, like building a house for the homeless or raising money for disadvantaged families (though there are indeed elements of this in our program) but the goal was to educate future leaders of social change from communities all around Mexico with the hope, in the spirit of John Stuart Mill, that they would fight for change in their respective communities in the best way, a way crafted for the community and created by the community.
I won’t be so bold as to say I’ve already seen the seeds of this long term goal planted and thriving, indeed, we’re running a camp for a group of 42 teenagers, and kids will be kids (so I say an 18 year old myself), but this week we went through the most hard-hitting elements of our curriculum, exploring fundamental social issues like poverty, education, and national identity, democracy in practice and consumerism, and today marked a turning point as participants began to shift from the role of a student to the role of an activist. They began today their awareness projects that should seek to spread the information regarding the social issue they’ve studied this week, and next week they’ll begin to plan the social projects they’ll bring back to their home communities. In this way, the goals of this project are now coming to fruition, and I’ll admit, I’m becoming very excited by these prospects on the horizon.
This week was quite an exciting week for me in general as I was able to explore a variety of topics I’m personally passionate about, and in teaching these ideas (as best as I could in my still developing Spanish) the best moments brought the perfect satisfaction of watching this passion spread. In the poverty workshop I led alongside two other facilitators we discussed the identity of poverty in Mexico, the long term causes born from history and the governmental and social systems it developed, foreign influences and the impact all of these had in conjunction with naturally existing geographic diversity. We moved on to discuss the attitudes often observed in impoverished communities, those defined by Oscar Lewis’ famous article on the Culture of Poverty published in the mid-sixties, which often contributes to a vicious cycle of expressed apathy and passiveness that only intensifies a community’s poverty. We continued with a critical examination of Mexican anti-poverty programs; we discussed the ethics of aid giving and how to make aid sustainable, and we ended with a discussion of Muhammad Yunus’ system of microlending which, in much the same way as Integrando a Mexico, attempts to place the power of change directly in the hands of the people who desire it.
The class on microfinance was particularly popular with the participants, perhaps because it was the single standing glimmer of hope left after a week’s investigation of the bleak economic circumstances found in Mexico today, but also perhaps because it illustrated a system of legitimate aid, of empowerment, which rightly so empowered the participants with the hopes of using such a system themselves to create social change in their near futures.
Participants seemed equally excited by the consumerism related activities we offered in the afternoons this week. We started with a conversation on global warming, motivated by the British film ‘The Age of Stupid’ and through the viral Youtube video “The Story of Stuff’ we expanded this conversation to explore consumerism as a culture, a cause of global warming and a frighteningly imperialistic force. This was fascinating for me as an American facilitator as I was able to better understand the impact of what I would admit to be a painfully American cultural value system on one of my country’s closest neighbors. It was thus very strange, but greatly important, to discover the popularity of American clothing like brands American Eagle, Abercrombie and Fitch and Aeropostale in middle and upper class Mexico. Potent despite a widespread disdain for the country these brands represent, this ironically ubiquitous fashion is, rather, popular for the symbol of wealth these brands bring that makes them marking signs for the in-group. In this way, I was very interested to have my suspicions about the nature of the spread of my country’s empty culture of wealth confirmed, but more importantly I was moved to see the participants take on the discussion of such a deeply rooted international issue with such enthusiasm. They were, again, empowered, because this crisis is one of their own generation, one they can fight in their own daily lives.
This theme of consumerism was rounded off in the next two days with a discussion of Permaculture, a lifestyle of absolute sustainability exercised in various locations around the globe, and finally we ended with a discussion of political ideologies (we covered Liberalism, Conservatism, Anarchism and Socialism/Communism) in an overt attempt to educate and furthermore encourage free thinking through applied and supported philosophical thought. I taught the workshop on Liberalism, using John Stuart Mill to discuss the central values of the classical form of the ideology, and I was overjoyed to hear participants respond with, again, such excitement. Many were simply happy to have confusions between the ideologies cleared, but others told me they were very interested to be introduced to a system of thought that they could relate to. On the bus after classes, one participant, Victor, told me he was very inspired by the lecture on socialism and wanted to learn more about how he can apply such ideas to his work in the coming week.
With examples like these, my hopes for the project are proving more and more realistic. Despite their youthful energy, very few participants were overloaded by the weight of this week’s topics, rather most had the opposite reaction; they’ve been inspired: they’re thinking critically about these ideas and in this way they’re thinking about their future. Another participant I talked to, Monica, told me today she’d like to create a project that works to strengthen the weary Mexican national identity through education programs that focus on history. She doesn’t know exactly how she wants to do it, but she’s truly impassioned. Even more impressive, however, she exhibits a focused sense of seriousness in her inspiration, one much like the kind I experienced when I first arrived in Mexico. For both her work and for that of the rest of the participants, I look forward to next week when, through the development of their ideas, their hopes can begin to become reality, and in this way, propelled by their work, I look forward to the same final transformation of my own.
Luke Pizzato (USA, AC 10-12)
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