FIRST PERSON

Hilltop

NEWS FROM CAMPUS

FIRST PERSON

Finding Our Place in the Social Fabric

A Cullman Scholarship from KUA helped me to better understand how we might work toward improved community engagement.

BY SEBASTIAN MORRIS ’22

Yaniel walked up to me as I was about to bite into the fluffy pan de mallorca I’d bought that morning on my way to the youth center. “Me puedes dar un pedazo?” he asked, with an irresistible grin—can I have a bite? He was part of a group of 8-year-old boys I was mentoring in an after-school program for underprivileged youth in San Juan, Puerto Rico. After our games of soccer and tag, they’d crowd around me, wanting to hold my hand. It was easy to play the role of counselor with the larger group, but when it was just me and Yaniel I felt self-conscious. I was a teen from New York City heading to a new school in New Hampshire with dreams of playing soccer in a NEPSAC championship. Yaniel was a boy from Las Marias, a poor neighborhood disconnected from the city in every way. The differences between us had seemed insurmountable, but our connection—cemented that summer over a shared love of pastries and Pokémon—suspended us briefly from our predetermined places in the social fabric.

Now, two years later, as a senior at Kimball Union, I have thought often of Yaniel and the massive obstacles he faces to even imagine a path out of Las Marias. Has anyone ever told him, “You are more than ‘this,’ ” as my teachers had done when I failed to turn papers in on time during my first semester at KUA? For me, the fact of being seen—beyond a literal grade—as a curious, passionate student allowed me to turn a corner and deeply influenced my growth. Teachers engaged in a manner of listening that I have come to appreciate as the most powerful form of human exchange, exercising empathy and a suspension of judgment that considers a person’s worth independent of any external condition. What if we approached working with communities, and kids such as Yaniel, with the same empathic listening?

This summer, through a Cullman Scholarship from KUA, I explored this question, studying models of community engagement with Dr. Flavia Peréa, a professor of sociology and the director of the Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship at Harvard University. I returned to San Juan to work as an intern with the nonprofit Resilient Power Puerto Rico (RPPR), which gave me a chance to connect to my ancestral land and understand what that community is going through and its place in the world. I was also able to learn about models of community engagement and service in that area. I determined to begin a service program at KUA and returned in the fall with some energy and a greater focus on how to implement such a program.

I began to understand that “listening” in the context of community work begins with trusting a stakeholder’s competence and ability to manage its own resources and providing the tools to do so. With Dr. Peréa I learned that the projects with the most lasting impact are those that focus on building relationships and letting individual stakeholders—not the funding NGO—define their priorities. This shift in power gives the recipient control over the initiative, which is more likely to ensure its success.

I saw the benefits of this dynamic firsthand during my work on RPPR’s “Red de Redes” program—a pilot to develop and fund solar microgrids for three women’s shelters that were members of a red, or network. At RPPR, listening took the form of capacity building, a process during which we worked closely with each shelter to define its energy usage, technical specs, and budget. It was inspiring to see the growing excitement as members of each organization became more invested in their project and embraced greater leadership roles. Their example motivated other shelters to opt into the initiative, strengthening the network overall.

Whether it’s sharing pastry with a youth in Las Marias, trusting a student’s ability to transform, or letting a recipient of a microgrid determine its use, these exchanges have one thing in common: They empower people to exercise agency and break restricting power dynamics. Having been on both sides of the equation, I now firmly believe that listening is fundamental to community work, and especially to scenarios where economic or social imbalances exist. This was a chance for me to learn a proper and more rewarding way to do service and gain more understanding of the values and positions people bring to service work. These experiences have profoundly shaped me as a person and inspired me in my leadership at KUA and beyond. K

“Listening is fundamental to community work, and especially to scenarios where economic and social imbalances exist.” —SEBASTIAN MORRIS ’22

Sebastian Morris ’22 co-leads All School Meeting twice a week in Flickinger Auditorium.