Recently in Project Category

With last week being Thanksgiving break, I knew I wasn't going to be at Casa de Esperanza, but I kind of thought I would get a few hours in at my internship in my hometown, Western Avenue.  No such luck. It was closed the entire time I was home.

My Casa internship is really...frustrating. I'll leave it at that. I'm having a lot of trouble, and I'm really wishing I could just have more hours at the place I volunteer for fun, La Oportunidad (I wanted to do my project with them, but they couldn't give me enough hours). I'm slowly realizing that although working with the Hispanic community would be my dream job, working with Hispanic children would really be the best place for me. I can't stand not being with those kids.

EDIT: I finally figured out a way to incorporate La Oportunidad into my Honors Project!!!!! I am going to continue going to work with El Camino, the kids' after school program that helps to preserve the culture, and I am most likely done with Casa...things were just not going well there, and I love my La Op kids too much to not have them be part of my project.

I AM SO EXCITED THAT I FINALLY FIGURED THIS OUT! You have no idea.

Not too much going on with my internships....still very few clients at Casa. Still one client who I wish didn't come. My on-site coordinator left the country for a while, so I have to wait a bit to talk to him about it again, but it shouldn't be too big of a problem since I won't be there this week with Thanksgiving.

I'm hoping to go to Western Avenue on Wednesday, but I'm not sure if it's open. I also am planning on going for Latina Women's Support Group if there is one on Friday night. I really can't wait for Christmas break so that I can go for a few days in a row, because I miss it there. Every time I'm at Casa de Esperanza, it reminds me of how it's NOT Western Avenue, which is hard.

I'm starting to realize what my passion is, narrowing it down a bit at least.  I have two internships here in St. Paul and one volunteer opportunity, and I really like the volunteer opportunity that I don't get any credit for the most. I think it's because I'm working with kids, so the unfortunate thig is that I don't really get to work with kids for my honors project.

Tuesday night was Casa's volunteer orientation. I have no idea why they called it that, since everyone (almost) there had already been volunteering there for a while. Anyway, so I got there, thinking that it was going to be boring, and it was. Not because it was a lot of review, but because I didn't understand a word of anything people were saying. 

At the beginning of the meeting, there were representatives from SMRLS (it stands for something, and it's a law firm that helps people free of charge).  They started to explain some things that had to do with the law, and basically, I understood nothing they said, except for that they are not allowed to represent undocumented immigrants because of where their funding comes from.  It was also pretty hard to understand stuff because I haven't had anything come up at Casa where there were legal questions involved. At Western Avenue, there's sometimes that kind of stuff, but Socorro handles it because she knows more about it (obviously) than I do.

Basically, I've decided that to be a good social worker, one has to know a bit about everything. I feel like I needed to take a law class just to understand what went on.  I'm really hoping that will come with experience though.

On the bright side, I did get a free Casa de Esperanza water bottle at my meeting. It's pretty sweet. :)

When I signed up to work at Casa de Esperanza, I thought that the people I would be serving would be the kind of people that you could tell were in need of help.  I figured I would be speaking a lot of Spanish, working with people on welfare, or that would have been if they had qualified, and a lot of undocumented immigrants.  I thought there was going to be a lot of pressure on me to guide their lives through periods in which they needed a great deal of help with big, huge problems--after all, immigrants face a lot of problems in the U.S.--we learned that last year, and I see immigrants facing problems in the other organizations with which I serve.  

So far, my work at Casa de Esperanza has been going really well. I'm not sure how it could not go well, however, since it involves a lot of sitting.  I work the 4-7 pm shift on Thursdays and Fridays, and needless to say, there aren't a whole lot of clients. My last shift I got a few people who came into the resource center because they were eating dinner at La Loma (BEST TAMALES EVER!).  Since they just came to eat dinner, they just asked questions about what they could hypothetically bring in for help. 

I checked in with my project supervisor and he asked me how things were going, and he said that the lack of clients have been a problem for a little while. I think one of my projects is going to be to collaborate with him (or someone else maybe?) in a project to see what kind of outreach would bring more people to the center at Plaza Latina, because apparently the one at Mercado Central is really busy all the time.

I feel like this blog is going to be really short, but not a whole lot is happening right now.  Hopefully once I start my research, then I can collaborate on the outreach project more and it might get a little more exciting.

For those of you that don't speak Spanish, Casa de Esperanza means "House of Hope." What's really ironic about that is that I'm kind of needing that hope right now.  I really like my project when I actually get to do things, but a lot of time seems wasted while I'm there.  To be honest, I expected to have a lot of clients, judging from how busy we are at Western Avenue all the time and from a few friends who have worked there. 

I guess I do some good stuff while I'm there.  Each time I have gone, I have helped at least one person in a legitimate way (this means more than letting them use a computer).  Last night I got a person directions to a car place, and answered questions to a few drop-in would-be clients.  It's kind of frustrating because the resource center is LITERALLY in a restaurant. Like a closet. It's quaint. Anyway, so people come in to the restaurant to eat, and they see our little center.  They remember they need help with stuff, so they come ask if we can help with ______ (filling out a passport application, for instance) here. They usually don't have the information on them, so they come back later.  Well, since I have the Thursday and Friday evening shifts, I get a lot of the people who are just there eating dinner and  don't have the stuff they need with them. It was kind of frustrating, but at the same time, it was kind of fun to talk to the people without having the pressure of messing up there document or making their problem worse or something like that.

The biggest use of our centers are the computers, which are free. It's really nice for members of the community, especially because they can print a few pages as well. However, I'm starting to feel that the kids who hang out there are kind of abusing the system by coming every day (that I am there at least). Their parents work at the plaza, so they have to be there all the time. I feel bad for them, but at the same time, I don't think it's necessary for them to get 10 prints every day they come in, especially since their prints are Hannah Montana lyrics, not immigration papers.

Overall, I'm loving the experience.  I wish that more people would come during my shift, but I guess that's something I can work on changing.  I know the coordinator said that they are working on outreach at this center, so perhaps that's something that I can be involved in. It's just really surprising how slow it is during the times that it is SO busy at Western Avenue.  I also feel like from the people who have come in, the problems or things they need help with are a lot more minor than some of the ones I have seen at Western Avenue. I guess that's good, because I'm not sure if I'm ready to handle some of those things.

Just a tip: When talking in Spanish to someone, make sure that you know the difference between "American" and "Mary Kay..." I almost accidently offered to buy makeup yesterday because I thought she asked if I was American. :)

Today I had my first shift at Casa de Esperanza in St. Paul.  I am working at a resource center for Hispanics in a little Hispanic mall in East St. Paul.  I got orientation and helped a client.  It was a pretty slow night, but hopefully my other shifts will be a little more excited. 

What I will be doing at Casa is really similar to what I do at Western Avenue, I can tell.  People can come in with whatever kind of problems--needing a job, needing to use a computer, fax machine, translation, etc.  Basically, it's my job to help them, or refer them to someone who can.  I think it should be really interesting and fun.  Tonight I didn't get to speak any Spanish, because I think the client was wanting to practice his English, but sometimes I will be able to, I'm guessing.

I noticed one thing at Casa that they have been working on at Western Avenue--keeping track of clients.  With these types of places, it's really important to keep track of how many people the agency serves so that they can get grants for more funding or staffmembers.  I know that they have been working at Western Avenue to figure out a logical system to do that, so hopefully I can see how Casa's system works and how successful it is and share my knowledge.

I also noticed that Western Avenue and Casa's St. Paul location are both trying to figure out how to attract more clients.  I have heard people in both locations say that the Hispanic population is a little more spread out around the centers, so it's a little different than the Lake St. location of Casa, where it's essentially right in the middle of the action.  I'm hoping that with the help of the workers at both places, we can figure out a solution. :)

I may be falling behind a bit on this blogging thing, but that's because my internship has taken so long to set up.  First, I didn't know my schedule because my Spanish teacher was in South America, but I was having good communication with the places I wanted to work.  Then, I found out my schedule, but the communication was bad.  Now, I think things are finally falling into place, and I'm really pleased with how things are turning out. 

So I was previously saying that I was going to work with El Centro with a kids' program there.  Turns out, the place that told me that I could volunteer "in whatever area I wanted" doesn't really need volunteers there...and stopped responding to my emails. Now I have made plans with my second-choice agency, which was originally my first choice, so maybe the thing with El Centro just wasn't meant to be.  I train next Tuesday, and then I will be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I get to work at a resource center for Casa de Esperanza...it's going to be a lot of random stuff, but it sounds like fun. Basically, people can come in when they need help with things, especially related to the language barrier, and I could help them (theoretically). It's really similar to things I do at home, so I think it could be cool.  The social issue I will tackle there would probably be the language barrier, if that counts. I think it should. I'm really excited.

I'm super excited to be starting my project. I will be working with El Centro in Minneapolis and possibly tying in something with Casa de Esperanza and/or La Oportunidad. I may or may not be a Spanish dork.

I haven't figured out the schedule completely, seeing as I find out about my Spanish class tomorrow, but I will most likely be working with the preschool program, the Adult Literacy/ESL program, the GED program, the teen/youth program, or parent nights. It will probably end up being kind of a combination of some of them. I might tie in some stuff working with the resource centers at Casa de Esperanza or working with kids in the parenting and after-school programs at La Oportunidad.

I also haven't decided what my issue is that I'm going to address, but I'm pretty sure I'll find it somewhere in there. Ideas are welcome as well :)