Service Prep: Aspiration Statement

Do you think there was enough glitter on my grad cap? :)

The Peace Corps staff in Uganda has told us that they're eagerly preparing for our arrival! They asked each of us to write and submit an Aspiration Statement, as a way to get to know us beyond what our resume and application could tell them.

Part of the application was a brief (500 word max) Motivation Statement. The Aspiration Statement is meant to build upon that Motivation Statement, and give them a better idea of who we are and what we're expecting from service.

I have decided to post mine so that anyone who's interested has a little insight into my perspective on Peace Corps service. My hope is also that any future Volunteers who may be reading this while writing their own Aspiration Statements can use it for comparison. Of course, these answers will be very unique to each individual, and so mine might sound completely different from every other person's!

Rest assured, I plan on keeping the old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words," in mind with my future posts!

ASPIRATION STATEMENT

Veronica Schinker 

Uganda 

November 2016

Now that you have read your Volunteer Assignment Description (VAD), please tell us about: 

A: Three professional attributes that you plan to use during your Peace Corps service and how these will help you fulfill your aspirations and commitment to service.

         I am resourceful. As an intern for Teach For America (TFA) for the past two years, I worked to recruit students in Nebraska who often had never heard of TFA. I had to develop many of my own strategies for this, as my manager was located a few states away and allowed me to make my own decisions while checking in with me once a week to ensure that I was on the right track. I was successful with recruitment for TFA, and plan to use my resourcefulness to bring a new perspective to the challenges faced by the community that I am placed in, and work together with the people in it to develop solutions.

            I am self-motivated, and am driven by my desire to see myself succeed in a position. I do not define success, however, as it typically relates to wealth or power. My majors in college are Anthropology, History, and Ethnic Studies because I am fascinated by and love learning about people; why we act the way we do, and how we form connections and cultures and find our passions. I define success as having positive relationships with the widest variety of people that I can, and having the peace of mind to be able to appreciate the little things in life. I am self-motivated to work hard to achieve my goals and also retain my own sense of stability and happiness.

            I am also curious. This contributes to my passion for learning new things about those around me and about the world in general. I hope to be able to employ my curiosity to seek out opportunities to build relationships in my community as well as branch out into developing aspects of the community that have not received as much attention as they need.

B: Identify two strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs.

            

            One strategy that will be crucial is that of truly listening to my host country partners. I want to be able to hear about their needs and contribute my own perspective to theirs, but in order to do so I will need a full understanding of the issue at hand, which can only be achieved through active listening. Another strategy is that of perseverance. There may be issues that take multiple attempts to solve, even with the combined efforts of my host country partners and myself. I will strive to be resourceful in my solutions and see failure as just another step toward an answer.

C: Your strategy for adapting to a new culture with respect to your own cultural background.

         Through my majors of Anthropology and Ethnic Studies, I have been extensively educated in cultural relativism. Of course, taking a class is much different from going through an experience, but the foundation is there. I have already worked to integrate this perspective into my daily life. My job working at a coffee shop may not seem like the best example of diversity, but I think that diversity can be defined in a variety of ways. The customers are mostly American, and thus from the same culture, but I have developed friendships with people who are a wide variety of ages and social backgrounds through simply serving them coffee and the daily short conversations that go along with that.

            I have also employed cultural relativism in the ESL classes that I volunteer with, as those have allowed me to interact with people who have come to Nebraska from all over the world. I have been able to both build friendships with them and learn about their cultures in a respectful manner. I believe that I will best be able to adapt to living in a culture that is different from mine by building strong relationships with people from that culture. I can say with confidence that I will be able to build many friendships, and learn to appreciate the culture through the perspectives of the people with whom I interact. This appreciation will allow me to participate in their culture, and change my behaviors, without losing my own inner values and perspectives from my own culture.  

D: The skills and knowledge you hope to gain during pre-service training to best serve your future community and project.

        I am most excited for the language training that I will receive. There is something very beautiful about being able to communicate with people in their own native language. I have learned this through the ESL class that I volunteer with, as I know a bit of Spanish and am able to converse with the Hispanic students during break times and I can clearly see that they value my attempts to understand them and communicate with them in this way.

            I am also looking forward to gaining perspective on Ugandan culture. My summer reading list is full of books recommended in the Peace Corps – Uganda training packet, but there is only so much that can be understood from books. I hope to learn as much as possible, as I know that will make integrating into a village at least a bit easier. I also am working to develop my teaching skills through volunteering this summer, but am anticipating many more opportunities to enhance my teaching skills while at PST.

E: How you think Peace Corps service will influence your personal and professional aspirations after your service ends.

         I cannot begin to imagine what I will be doing after Peace Corps, because I foresee that Peace Corps will have a strong influence on the way that I see the world. Being a Peace Corps Volunteer has been my goal since I was 12, and beyond that I just know that I want to continue to work with nonprofits and learn about the world through working with a diverse variety of its people. I am certain that Peace Corps will help develop my abilities to be calm in all situations, have strength through adversity, and be a better citizen of the world. At my high school there were five goals for students to develop, and my favorite of these is the third goal: “A social awareness which impels to action.” I hope to spend my life developing an intimate awareness of the world around me, but also to lend my passion to wherever I can be of service.

            I do not believe that people from developing countries need to be saved from their lives, or pretend to be certain that a 21-year-old girl can make much of an impact. But I do think that everyone can use a helping hand, and I know that I can go to a new country, connect with its people, and lend a hand to the absolute best of my abilities. If I better someone’s life in the process, then I will be ecstatic, but I’ll know that they have bettered mine even more for the experience.

Preparing for Service

The first thing you need to know about me is that I am a firm believer in Great Love. My parents have been happily married for 32 years, and are still head over heels for each other. My aunts and uncles and cousins are also wonderful examples of stable, beautiful relationships and marriages. I have grown up with the belief that love is the most powerful force in the world, there is someone out there who I was meant to find, and all of the adventures in my life will be better because we're together.

Well, I'm 22 years young, and I haven't found anyone. That doesn't bother me, and I've decided that I can stop searching, because I'm done waiting for someone to come along and take me on adventures. My life is my own adventure, and it's up to me to make the most of it.

One of my best friends, Holli, understands this about me. As soon as I told her that I got an interview for the Peace Corps, she said, "Ronnie. This could be your Great Love." And that statement has transformed my perspective. I knew then that I could take this opportunity, pour my heart into it, and that this experience and the country of Uganda could give so much to me in return. Give and take, the way love is supposed to be.

Love requires passion, especially in its beginning stages. One of the causes I am most passionate about is striving for access to quality education as a human right. In traveling to Uganda to promote literacy, I will be working for something that I truly care about. Passion.

Two years of my life is no small commitment. I'm sure I'll discover firsthand why Peace Corps is described as "The toughest job you'll ever love." I have already enthusiastically agreed to the Core Expectations for Service, one of which is "Serve where the Peace Corps asks you to go, under conditions of hardship if necessary." No one has ever claimed that love is easy.

I am ready and willing, overwhelmed with excitement about beginning this journey. Of course, I'm already reading as much as I can about Uganda and the lives of other Volunteers. I'm so grateful to finally be putting effort into the experience of a Great Love that will challenge me, inspire me, and be a part of my story forever.

As I continue to prepare for service, for leaving behind my family and friends and the only place I've ever lived, this quote has stuck with me: "You can have anything in life, if you will sacrifice everything else for it." -J.M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan)