Last summer, I had a Dartmouth Partners in Community Service (DPICS) Internship in Boston. My internship gave me first-hand knowledge and unfiltered exposure to the lives of some of Boston's poorest and most destitute citizens. A year has gone by since my internship, and I am still trying to reconcile the utopian world of plenty I encounter at Dartmouth with the world of poverty and need existing in so many other places.
Most of us here at Dartmouth come from privileged backgrounds. Although many of us may experience difficulties paying tuition or affording the latest fashions, few of us have ever lacked our basic necessities. We have never gone home to find that our house is without heat, our electricity has been turned off or there is no food in the pantry. This is not part of our life experience, not part of our reality. And yet, this is how much of the world lives.
When I was little, I always loved the beach and dreamed about having my own beach-front house. As I got older and read more, dreams of travel occupied my thoughts: touring the cathedrals of Europe, climbing the steps of the pyramids of Egypt, scuba diving around coral reefs, admiring the beauty of the Northern lights and visiting the region of Poland from which my ancestors immigrated. I still have these aspirations, but lately I've been questioning them. Is it fair that I'm thinking of vacation homes and travel while other people are wondering where there next meal is coming from?
In Boston at my internship, I handled requests for food and rent assistance. I often had to turn away mothers with young children looking for food, disabled veterans who needed help with the rent, or elderly people who just weren't surviving on Social Security.
I looked people straight in the eye, told them we had no food vouchers left and no money for rent assistance available, and wished them a good day and better luck. Then, at 5 o'clock, I took the commuter bus home to eat a wonderful dinner in my air-conditioned house. Where was the justice? Who gave me the right to live with plenty while others had none?
While recognizing that we cannot change the world overnight, we are called to take some responsibility for the plight of the poor. We live in one of the richest and most technologically advanced countries in the world, and as the future intellectual, financial, and political leaders of our country, we are obligated to stop blaming the victims. We must redirect our energies toward waging a war against the real culprits: poverty and hopelessness. I am not sure that our call to responsibility means abandoning dreams of a home on the Cape or forgoing tours of Europe, but it does mean being generous with our resources and mindful of the effects of our actions.
One small step in beginning to address these issues is considering our own actions. Even if we are not directly involved with public policy legislation or corporate takeovers, our personal decisions can have a significant impact on the misery of others. The way we vote, the policies we campaign for, and the injustices we ignore all affect real people. After we graduate, when we are faced with important decisions in the corporate world or political arena, how will we choose? Will we consider how it may affect the nation's most destitute? Will we seek to make decisions that affirm or destroy the inherent human dignity of each person? In assessing the effects of a decision, we must be mindful of our obligations to those who are not making the decisions, those who have no voice and whose fate lies in our hands.
Each one of us is partly responsible for the countless numbers of men, women, and children who go hungry every night and who live in constant danger of not being able to meet their basic human needs. We have an obligation to all the members of the human family.
