Blog Post 2: GH

Redefining service during our time in Zambia thus far has come with a fair amount of cognitive dissonance. Before this trip, I struggled to see ways in which people can serve in a public or global health setting without enacting a savior complex or replicating post-colonial violence. In these past two weeks, I have not necessarily learned how to serve “correctly,” but I have noticed that simple awareness of the confusion I feel about how to serve has brought my attention to the ways that others around me serve.

The everlasting debate about service is whether or not service is “valid” when you receive something in return. Since arriving in Zambia, I have noticed that searching for this type of service is futile and closes us from opportunities to engage with those around us. As Tine said, giving service is also about receiving and I have seen this theme come to light several times during our time in Zambia, UTH, and ActionAid. Our academic purpose at ActionAid is to lend our time, resources, and knowledge to help them develop a framework as they serve their larger mission of empowering vulnerable populations around Zambia. However, I think it has been important to remember that with all the resources and skills that being Cornell students comes with, we are not “useful” just because we are Cornell students. In other words, it has been important for me to remember that our status as American university students does not automatically put the label of service on any action we take with our NGO placements. It is also service to take on a passive role for a time—seeing someone and listening to their interests, concerns, needs, and offerings with empathy. In these two weeks, I feel more motivated to serve when I accept what I may receive in return, perhaps what their investment in one of my own interests or concerns. When we are seen by others, it motivates us to see others in return.

My host sisters, Nandila and Thokozile often sing the Zambian national anthem in the backyard. The lyrics define the type of service that Zambians often embody. “Joy in unity,” “all one, strong and free,” and “dignity and peace ‘neath Zambia’s sky” all speak to the ways in which Zambians see each other. This service of seeing each other extends to us as students from abroad being seen as more than a large group of foreigners, but as individuals with our own identities and backgrounds. Thinking about service as truly seeing someone and bringing each other to this “dignity and peace” through unity and empathy has clarified a lot of my initial concerns about global service. A distinction I have seen between my initial concerns with service and my current ideas of service is the frame in which we see people. In the first concept, where we strive for service as an action of giving without return, we actually see people within our own frames of the world—enforcing our definitions of giving on them. In the second concept, we can do service by seeing others in their own frames, using empathy to take a step into their world and to understand the stakes they have in their own lives, rather than our stakes in theirs.

I’m not sure that service is something that should or needs to be measured. Measuring the success of service is subjective for each person. Especially as a student whose success is traditionally measured by quantitative grades and standard, for me, measuring the success of service disengages me from the type of service I actually would like to embody—turning us away from seeing others within their own frames.