This seems to be my year of URI. After becoming a Youth Ambassador in January and flying out to D.C. for a leadership training in March, June found me starting my first day as a communications/youth department intern in the global office in San Francisco. As summer experiences go, it’s been everything an idealistic college student could hope for (challenging, rewarding, inspirational, etc. etc.). That being said, there are a few key lessons that stand out of the ten-week blur of creating pledge campaigns and building youth networks. Please note these are in no particular order (except for #1, which is by far the most important):
Kay’s candy bowl is a deadly trap. It sucks you into thinking you need to grab a piece of chocolate every time you walk by, with a minimum of at least three per day. And it always has such a wonderful selection.
Facebook and Twitter can actually be used as communication tools. My past experience with social media sites was a kind of procrastination technique, limited to personal status updates and avoiding anything on my to-do list. This summer, I’ve finally seen how the Internet – with all of its blogs, fan pages, and event listings – can be used to connect a global network. It can create momentum, raise awareness, recruit followers, and build a movement. For a far-flung organization like URI, those little points of contact are essential.
URI is wonderfully complex. You can’t imagine how often I’ve struggled to describe the concepts of CCs, and interfaith, and Youth Ambassadors to my family and peers. It’s a good struggle, of course. The organizational model is one of the reasons I love URI; while it achieves great things locally, it is at the same time a global movement that reaches all around the world. The more you get to know URI, the larger it becomes, and that makes for a continual discovery process.
It’s pretty cool to be “da yoof”, as we affectionately termed our Youth Department. I often fall prey to the belief that I am too young, too inexperienced, or too undervalued to actually make a difference. But working with such a dynamic group, and seeing the great initiatives of my fellow Youth Ambassadors, has helped me realize that people of all ages all over the world are taking action now, are stepping up in their communities regardless of the challenges or constraints. That’s inspiring.
Recognizing those common threads of humanity. Perhaps the deepest lesson learned over my ten weeks was the value of a life, and the universality of the human experience. Sounds a bit cliché, but it’s true. I open my inbox every morning to photos and e-mails from Pakistan, Germany, and Argentina; we hear first-hand accounts of the struggles of women in India and the famine in Somalia. In URI, we are a community, and these people’s defeats and triumphs become our own. We are all so similar. Regardless of what side of the divide we’re on, we all have our challenges and our trials; we all can feel alienated, isolated, beaten down and alone. We all have that cause we believe in passionately. We all have that dream we’re working towards. It was something of a revelation when I discovered that, around the world, despite differences in religion, ethnicity, or tradition, we all feel the exact same things. Because we’re all human. And how beautiful it is, that there is an organization like URI, allowing us to connect over those shared experiences.
