Year of Service Synopsis

Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services

I have sincerely enjoyed my involvement with Ethiopian Tewahedo Social Services (ETSS) and interaction with its instructors and class participants over the past year. At ETSS, volunteers provide assistance with the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training classes. ESOL classes for adult participants enhance language and job skills as well as other cultural knowledge and interaction, with the primary goal of helping participants to live and work successfully in the United States. Some of my main areas of focus while working with ETSS were: to promote diversity and inclusion within our community through compassion and empathy for the ESOL refugees and asylum seekers; to share knowledge and experience by assisting with ESOL classes designed to break down language and cultural barriers in order to improve lives and our community and world; to develop genuine relationships and possible enduring friendships with ESOL participants that extend beyond the service project; and, to model integrity and preparedness for ESOL class members by being a good citizen, being prepared for classes, being genuine and honest and following through to fulfill responsibilities. At ETSS, I hoped to help refugees and asylum seekers with the English language and cultural assimilation while increasing my own respect, appreciation, and understanding of cultural and personal differences in our global community.

Impact On Me of my Year of Service

I believe that my Year of Service has significantly impacted me. I have grown in many positive ways, including by becoming more confident in my leadership abilities, more effective in communicating with people, and more culturally sensitive and aware. One of the key skills that many engineers lack is the ability to effectively communicate, not only with other engineers but also with non-engineers to explain engineering topics and issues in layman’s terms with clients. The challenges that I faced at ETSS in trying to teach English to non-English speaking adult students are in many ways similar to the communication challenges that I will face in my future career as an engineer. The ability to communicate in a creative, out of the box way, that I gained through volunteering at ETSS is a skill that is not easily learned in a classroom or at an engineering firm. Moreover, I enhanced my cultural sensitivity and awareness at ETSS in ways that will help throughout my life, including in civil engineering and city planning projects so I focus on equality of resource allocation and other social justice aspects of my career. These positive impacts from my Year of Service greatly improve my ability to make a difference in our community, in addition to enhancing my capacity to stand out in a technical field in which communication and social justice issues may not always be at the forefront.