My position at Saint Agnes Hospital and at the Esperanza Center helped me to get acquainted with Baltimore City as an out-of-state student. My interactions with Central American immigrants living in Baltimore inspired me to become more active in advocating for local resources and widespread acceptance of immigrants.
It is exciting to have resources and ideas about how to solve the clean water crisis, but without the ability to communicate and form relationships using their own language, the projects may not go as planned. Teaching English is always something that requires a lot of flexibility because of factors like comprehension level, literacy, and varying interests.
The Service-learning practicum through the Shriver Center includes weekly reflection essays regarding the impact your service has on the community and what steps you might take to further that impact. Volunteering at the Esperanza Center specifically gives one a degree of insight to the experiences of immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers in the complicated systems within the United States. It also makes one consider the reasons behind each individual's decision to leave their home country.
Water Quality Statistics from... http://www.who.int/en/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water