Less than two weeks ago I found out that I would be joining a group of undergraduate students as a global service-learning (GSL) facilitator for the NGO Amizade on its "Peace, Reconciliation, and Identity: Literature and Politics in Northern Ireland" course. I am most grateful for this wonderful opportunity to again get to explore, serve, and understand with Amizade while traveling with the students to Ireland. Since finding out, it has been a bit of a whirlwind preparing to depart on such short notice. Whirlwinds can be fun. This is certainly one such whirlwind.
I leave for Dublin tomorrow, where we will spend about one week before traveling North. It is my hope that I can remain objective and flexible in my attempt to understand the decades old conflict of Northern Ireland. I will also be striving to understand the many complexities of an ongoing peace process and how it is critical to building a sustainable future. This course will also be an opportunity for me to further my own inquiry into my role as a global citizen while also helping the students to explore this complex topic. I have decided to blog as a means for communicating this experience and with the hope of providing some insight into the conflict and the peace process, both topics that I knew next to nothing about just a few weeks ago (and still have very far to go). I also intend to use this space as a means for reflecting on other topics such as identity, service, global citizenship, as well as some of the many other thoughts, emotions, or ideas that this travel experience is likely to jar loose. Thank for choosing to 'follow' this blog and please know that I look forward to the possibility of a shared dialogue among us. Until then...I am off to Dublin.
For more information on the wonderful organization that is Amizade, please visit www.amizade.org
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