“You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug” is one of my favorite lyric lines in the song “Brave” by Sara Bareillas. Last weekend, I turned a stereotype used against me into a powerful change agent.
On Sunday afternoon of last week, I came back from DREAM Camp from a town on the Black Sea. The camp launched this year by Peace Corps and a local organization to promote tolerance and respect for diversity, ethnicity, and multiculturalism among Georgian youth. Since most Georgians (over 80%) are ethnically Georgian and practice the Georgian Orthodox sect of Christianity, diversity is not a topic that is openly and frequently discussed in the social and educational fabrics of society. So we set out on a mission to have open discussions with 30 teenagers regarding diversity and multiculturalism.
Each Peace Corps Volunteer led a session on a topic relating to diversity. I led a session on Identity with the help of a host country national translating my English into Georgian. The session was meant to connect race, ethnicity, and nationality to the meaning of personal identity. Considering how the media portrays my ethnic background as anything but the “majority” in the West, I used my story to ignite change. Now, Sara Bareillas might have sung those lyrics with a different audience, but I decided to get raw and vulnerable with the teenagers sitting in front of me. I felt that in order to make a difference I had to divulge into deep parts of my personal history of discrimination that I quite frankly never discuss openly. I’ll spare you the details, but I straight up told the teens the consequences of what happens when a society seeks out intolerance, exclusion, and intolerance of minorities in such a raw and personal way. Now, I was mostly providing some old anecdotes, but it can’t be more relevant for today considering our current world events.
I told them that it is important to recognize that your identity, self-perception, and self-confidence can be so deeply tied to society’s perception of you. So I ended my session on the note that it is important to seek out understanding from those who may be slightly different from you.
At the end of the session, I walked away not knowing what impact, if any, my session had on the teenagers.
We had scheduled a Karaoke and dance party after dinner for our campers. While signing and dancing along to “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, one of the teenagers came up to me. Now, I’ve recognized this kid before, but she was one of the quite ones who participated here and there. She admitted to me that she loved my session and it was thus far her favorite. She said that my story left a great impression and I had made an impact on the way she viewed diversity and identity. She said she was really grateful and glad I was able to present and then proceeded to give me a big, fat hug. I appreciated the genuine embrace and told her thank you for feeling comfortable to share her thoughts with me.
And this my friends, is the perfect example of an interaction of what I hoped as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Then, I walked away hoping that this girl will shine a light and spread some love and joy into her community.
If you wanted to check out more information about DREAM Camp, feel free to visit our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dreamcampgeorgia/
Here is a video of DREAM Camp on YouTube: