Regaining agency

Starting from the beginning of my journey in college to this point where I’m about to graduate, I have experienced many states of "agency" revolving around social and environmental justice. I first felt wide eyed and bushy tailed about my hopes of being able to make true change in the world around me. I had hope. Now fast-forwarding to today, much of that hope is lacking and it is creating a barrier between the work I'm doing and the work I should be doing. I have lost a lot of the courage and drive to think outside the box and fight unapologetically regardless of the opponent. I'm hoping to regain some agency back through the work that I do in this class. I believe that if I prove to myself that the work I’m doing really is making a difference, than it will catapult me back into action.

So the question here is: What impact do I hope to have throughout this experience?

Before answering this question, I must give a little background as to why I chose my project in the first place. My capstone project includes working with middle school kids in an after school program. I chose this program because I went through most of my life never being exposed to a lot of truths about the world that I wish I knew earlier in life, and I’m hoping to empower kids so that they don’t have to wait as long as I did. I have never worked with kids and have never been fully exposed to kids in my adult years, so needless to say, this will be challenging. But I have already gained a broader appreciation for them and their sense of self in the world as it is today growing up in the unique culture that is Humboldt County. The impact that I hope to make is simply to inspire them to love life, love the world around them, and most importantly, critically think about what their place in the world is and what it can be. I would like to empower them to never take life for what it is but to always fight for what they want. This may be difficult is such a short amount of time and with no experience in doing this work, but I’m just taking it one step at a time.