Write a post about what you’ve been observing in your community organization and in Detroit. As a part of this post, you will also need to post a picture and write a brief summary about the photograph.
As I end my third week working with Focus: HOPE’s HOPE Village Initiative, I notice small but significant changes to my work environment. The most prominent change that I have been experiencing is the sight of additional new interns working with us. There are many new faces, sometimes even too many to keep track off. However, I view these new faces as an opportunity to branch out, mingle, and network. Particularly in this environment where there are employees that have worked with Focus: HOPE for years, if not decades, it feels good to know that there are people in the same boat that I am in in terms of joining with and working for a nonprofit, and that us younger interns work together peacefully with veterans of the program.
In the past week I have been learning a lot of new skills and how to use datasets in creative ways. More specifically, I have been working with data of previous crimes and demolitions in the HOPE Village area and have been showing the data on maps, not only showing where the crime or demolition took place, but additional details about it. It may not seem like much, but to me it was really cool to see this data put in place especially after overcoming previous difficulty with the program.
In Detroit my observations over the past week have not changed tremendously. What I have seen however was more of a coexistence between different groups of people, mainly between the longtime residents of Detroit and the newer residents. I had especially seen this when I went to Motor City Pride over the weekend. Longtime Detroiters celebrated with those from the suburbs and even people out of state due to their similar characteristics–being LGBT. It sounds cliche, but to see people coexist unabashed in their differences and proud of their similarities calms me a bit. Especially in light of recent times, it is good to show different groups of people not in direct conflict with each other.
