Public Work Essay

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Sam Hafermann

ENGL 1501W

November 17, 2015

Analytic Public Work Essay

Women of Nations is a wonderful organization that is host to some of the most dedicated and hard-working people I have seen. Their main focus is to be an emergency shelter for battered women and their children. Services for women include a 24-hour crisis line, 24-hour counseling/advocacy services, safe and confidential housing, support groups, legal advocacy, transportation services for legal or medical appointments, as well as numerous services for children. The main idea behind the organization is to provide a safe haven for women and children that have been in an abusive situation. It has been eye opening to see the different stories and experiences that people in the shelter have had as well as some of the things that the workers have dealt with over the years. Growing up in a suburb and going straight to college, I have not really come into contact with these types of situations as much as the full-time workers. This volunteering experience has definitely taught me to always go into a situation with an open mind and to never judge another person because we all make mistakes in life. It is more important how we learn from the mistakes we have made instead of dwelling on the past.

I have made two main connections that I have seen between the literature we have read in class and my volunteering experience. These two connections come from the passage we read “Multiplication is for White People” by Lisa Delpit and different personally profiles from the novel “Gig”. In her writing, Delpit talks about how middle

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class students take for granted how much they actually learn as children just from living in a structured environment. I personally have seen the differences between children in my volunteering. Coming from many different backgrounds, it is evident that some children just know more about things then some other students that may have come from a more...