Freewrite assignment

So I choose to write my oped on the importance of learning about a culture before you try and serve them. I chose this first because I wanted something that would let me talk about charity work and service in foreign countries because I think it is one of the only things I actually get passionate about. I also thought of this idea because I am taking an international development class that has really made me rethink development and charity work. Like my teacher was saying the audience for this piece is supposed to be BYU students and so I thought that since we’re all religious here that service would be an easily accepted topic. But then I was doing the reading in WR chapter 2 and it said that you want to introduce an argument that won’t automatically be agreed with. So I am thinking of introducing my argument as the importance of individualistic services versus serving millions. By this I mean that I think it is much more effective to give meaningful service that you KNOW will help someone (because you took the time to get to know them beforehand) versus just pumping money into a “less developed” country.  I thought to support my argument I could talk about my experience in northern India about a year ago. I went to a town called Chamba, India and taught young children English for a week. Some things that I realized is that although our service was meaningful to the kids the English lessons we prepared for them could have been better prepared personally on my part. I should have studied out the materials before hand in order to make the learning the most profitable for the kids. I still think they learned, but if I would have been better prepared then I would have been able to adjust better to what their personal needs were instead of just what I was “supposed to do”. One thing that I really did like about my group though was the personal time we got to spend getting to know the children. We spent all week getting to know the school kids we were serving and at the end we had the chance to implement a special service project based on their needs. For example in my school we taught on the roof because the basement (the actual school) was unfinished. The roof was flat and plesant but it also had a large drop off the side and if any kid would have fallen off of it they could have been seriously hurt. So for our personalized project we hired local workers to build a barrier around the  roof so the kids would be safe. I am so glad we did serviced this way instead of deciding what the children needed before we even met them, because I think whatever we would have chosen beforehand would have been unsatisfactory. When you take the time to learn about a culture and individual’s needs before you start serving it makes the service so much more meaningful. It’s like any paper, if you don’t take time to do the research needed or think about what you want to say beforehand the paper won’t be nearly as persuasive or meaningful as it could have been if you were prepared. I hope when I’m writing this paper that I can find some good statistics to help prove my point as well as provide my personal experience from India. I don’t know if everyone will be interested in the topic but I hope if I present it well enough people will be. I hope  that I can write in such a way that not only inspires people to serve in other nations but also to go about that service in the right way. In my development class my professor talked about how the common idea of what a developed nation should be is a capitalist society that has a democracy, but he brought up the point that that may not be what every culture wants or needs. So in order to best help those in developing countries you have to first go there and get a feel for their culture and actually talk to CITIZENS not the government who may not always have the poor in their best interest. When you talk to the people you plan on implementing a certain development plan on you can change it and mold it to match their needs. The downside to this approach of service is that it can not be as wide-scaled or “mass production” like us, as americans, would like it to be and so it could be frustrating to people. They would rather help a lot of people a tiny  bit rather than a small village or group a lot. I think it is a fine line to walk because you want to help as many people as possible, but I also know that if you try to implement the same pan for everyone it definely won’t work. Because every culture, every town, and every person is different so when you try to make a blanket solution it may help a few, but the rest will be left off no better than before.   I’m scared to write this paper because I think it is going to be hard to get my argument to come across the right way. I also really want it to be persuasive and meaningful to b=people because it is so meaningful to me. I also think I need more examples to demonstrate my point because one personal experience just isn’t enough. Maybe if I talk to my international development teacher he could point me to some good research…