All good things must come to an end..

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Gandhi

This semester my macro-practice class worked on a week of community interventions for Break The Silence, Stop the Violence Domestic Violence/Sexual Assault against women awareness week. It was filled with four events that helped to spread awareness on violence against women. These events included The Clothesline Project, Take Back the Night, Telling Amy's Story Video, and The Vagina Monologues. For each event to be successful there was much process to be put into each one, and then to bring them all together to make the week a success.

Throughout this semester and being a part of this week I have learned much about what macro practice is, how organization, structure, communication, dedication all come into play when it comes to putting macro practice into work.  For a project this large you would think that "divide and conquer" would be the best way to approach it. But in this case that may not be the best idea. Because it is important to remember that this project will be all put together at some point to make it a finished project, it makes it more difficult to have too many opinions, and to many ideas all at once, which may not piece together so easily in the end. So it is important to keep in mind that if the work is divided, you must still communicate with one another to stay on the same track. To divide and conquer this project the three macro practice classes each took on separate roles and within those classes had a communicator between the three. Therefore this making it easier for the communicator to let their own individual classes know what needed to be done and give us updates. The communicator for each class played a huge role in how successful the communication between the three classes was.

I feel that the biggest part in this week was the dedication it took for all people involved to make it a success. Dedication is defined as the quality of being dedicated or committed to a task or purpose. Being committed is something I feel this group reflected. Dedication also takes time and energy. Two things that most of us are running low on these days. But we pushed through it with the motivation from one another and our advisors. We were reminded everyday how much of what we were doing was helping the projects go on their way.  We were able to look to each other for support and to express any feelings of doubt, stress, concern, or excitement.  With the help of one another we made it through.

"It is much easier (at least in the short run) to just focus on one or the other and that is what most groups do. Groups of people have very strong tendencies toward focusing just on their commonality or just on their differences. "


I feel that this quote captures what this group did well. We learned how to balance each other out. Throughout our individual classes, and all three classes combined there was a large amount of differences and similarities about ideas and feelings for this project. We all learned how to open up to a difference or how to defend a similarity.  It was a hard task, but I feel that without learned how to do so we wouldn't have been so successful. It was more difficult for some compared to others, but i feel it reflected in our work how well we did. 


Look forward at future macro classes, my advice to these future macro practice classes is to stay calm, and get organized. Make lists of what worked and what didn't work for us. Take into consideration any new or old ideas that may be given or used. An event like this never turns out the same twice. It is important to keep an open mind and go with the flow. Allow yourself to reflect on each piece of the project and what your learning. Look at the bigger picture of things.

As this semester began I always thought of macro practice to be about policies, procedures, and laws.  I never considered it to be based around communities, but to be focused on a much larger scale. I've learned that it is so much more than that. Macro practice is about awareness, experience, and larger scale support systems.  Being in a community you have this entire support system around you. Each person brings a different story and experience to the table that you can learn from. As for myself I've learned and accepted the fact that I am an important part to the community or multiple communities I am involved in. People learn from me as much as I am learning from them.   I never gave myself much credit before. Although I am intimidated by many things, especially working with groups I have learned how to work with this feeling and get through it. I am only a small and minor part of this world, but what I'm working towards achieving is impacted by my part in community and world.  A few examples of how I see and consider myself as an activist are explained greatly from "Active Being! Clarity From the Remastered Tools 101 Participants"...

....Active being is being okay with making mistakes, having compassion for yourself and others, not being perfectionist, sharing works-in-progress.

Radical self care is the foundation of active being for me.  When I take good care of me, I do good work.  Such simple things like drinking enough water, cooking good meals, praying, putting on lotion.

Active being is listening to myself and listening to my community and physically putting my body where it needs to be.

As I've worked through this semester and with this community project I've learned these things about myself. I will take what I've learned and bring it with me into my next experiences. In 5 years I hopefully will remember the great impact this project made on not only me, but all the individuals who helped and attended these events. My knowledge about violence towards women has grown and I hope  it has done so for others as well. It makes me proud to be a women. And I have learned to give myself respect first and hopefully will receive the same respect back.

For future students who will cross the same dilemmas and paths when it comes to learning and being a part of community work. I leave you with this. Take time for yourself. Don't stress the little things. To go with the flow. Don't forget to take your time with your duties of the class and your everyday life. Make lists, lots of lists. Make a visually appealing outline of what you need to get done, and mark each task off one by one. And most of all keep motivated, you will get through it. So be who you are and be who you want to be. And keep in mind that you can create change.