Week One: DISORGANIZATION but promise

Dear Chris,

This week you have begun working with a new organization and begun living in a new city. Everything has gone by so fast and at this moment nothing seems to be stopping. I have seen that the interaction with the community is great and the youth outreach programs especially are amazing while the organization in many areas may be lacking and the participation in events is sporadic and generally a one-off for many Southwest residents that we target at DHDC.

Looking forward, the biggest challenge to me is probably going to be the lack of structure that is very apparent at this point. Unless the director of DHDC (Angie Reyes, who I have not yet met as the office is very large) offers that direction it will be difficult to conduct any sort of highly focused research that will benefit the organization. I have been communicating well with my supervisor and other co-workers, however, and have been pretty productive the first couple days anyway; translating the Padres Unidos curriculum and tagging along, offering suggestions to Ana and Fernanda in how to organize their programs could end up being a lot of what I do although I would prefer it not to be that way. Being the type of person who is highly disorganized himself in many different ways, I will need to buckle down and try to impose structure in order to use my time here meaningfully.

Most importantly, after these first few days, I can tell that I will be happy with my experience at the end of this summer and possibly even craving more time to work in this organization. José (a co-worker) put it this way yesterday: “People are drawn to this place for a reason, and they often end up staying.”

See you in 9 weeks (PLEASE SEE A LOT OF DETROIT),
Chris