Welcome to my new blog! I will do my best to update it regularly while I am gone to Turkey and Greece. This marks the beginning of my international summers of service that I received through the Doris Stroupe Slane Trinity Scholarship to Duke University. Through this scholarship, I am given stipends to do service projects domestically and all over the world. I am so excited to be involved in civic engagement projects that will help my global community, even if it is in a tiny way, I am also so grateful to Duke University, the Slane family, and the Office of Undergraduate Scholars and Fellows for providing me with this opportunity, and for my family and friends who will support me through this process.
I hope to learn a lot during this summer, and I hope that keeping it all in writing will help me reflect further on what I am learning and will help me remember my trip after I leave. I will try to include some pictures in the blog posts, but you can also see more pictures at my Flickr page here.
To get started, the following is the statement of intent that I wrote in order to have this trip approved. With this, you can learn the basics of the program I will be working with and the things that I hope to learn and do while I am there. Enjoy!
Tucked away in a rural area called Kanoni, Corfu in Greece is a newly-formed and quickly-blossoming facility known as The Silva Project. At this site, The Silva Project runs a horse farm that gives horseback riding lessons to local children, an organic kiwi farm that grows a sustainable crop for the nearby city of Corfu Town, and a dog rescue shelter that provides people all over the world with new pets. At the horse farm, The Silva Project breeds and researches a rare species of horse called the Skyrian Pony. It is fabled that this is the species of horse that is carved into the walls and columns of the famous Parthenon in Athens, Greece and that the Skyrian ponies were also Alexander the Great’s horse of choice in his conquests. Since these ancient times, populations of wild Skyrian horses across Greece have been decimated by the urbanization of many islands. The Silva Project is one of the only organizations in the world that dedicates itself to the conservation and study of these ponies and to educating other people about them. Among these aforementioned objectives, The Silva Project villa is also the home of the local community center of Kanoni—a place for engaging the locals with their community by providing a public meeting place to host discussions about environmental and social issues or to have fun and learn.
The location of The Silva Project is on an expansive, seaside villa belonging to the founder of this organization who is named Sylvia Dimitrades Steen. Ms. Steen is a woman with an undying passion for her community, her animals, and for people to learn about the enriching virtues of both. Volunteers at The Silva Project are graciously invited to stay and eat in her home at no expense. It is clear through the project’s website and the informative exchanges that I have had with representatives of The Silva Project that Ms. Steen and the other leaders of The Silva Project are dedicated to creating an organized and efficient environment where no labor is wasted and no passion unused. Luckily, many of my passions overlap those of the creators of The Silva Project. As an avid supporter of creative, hands-on education for people from all backgrounds and ages, the horseback riding lessons that The Silva Project offers and the community center that it sponsors provide a great opportunity for me to help organize and enhance the education experiences of the people in Kanoni, Corfu.
It is for this reason that I am excited to be taken on by The Silva Project as an office assistant, a community center coordinator, and a barn hand for 8 weeks in late May, June, and early July of 2009. With these titles, I will be involved in office jobs, taking care of the horse farm, and coordinating events at the Kanoni Community Center. My office jobs will include communicating with prospective volunteers, placing new volunteers in new positions, and writing newsletters and articles for those who wish to know more about the Silva Project. As an English major and a person who is seriously considering attending graduate school to receive a Masters of Business Administration in Human Resources, this job will be most pertinent to my course of study and my future goals. As a community center coordinator, I will also be responsible for planning events that are hosted by the community center such as art clubs, discussion forums, and guided explorations of The Silva Project villa. Since I am a cultural anthropology major with a passion for education and creativity, I think that this aspect of my job with The Silva Project will give me a perfect opportunity to passively study the culture of the people of Kanoni, Greece and to work with them on increasing their awareness of the environment and other global issues. Finally, the additional job as a barn hand will help me reconnect with my long-lost passion for horses, and it delights me to know that working with the Skyros horse will help to promote the rehabilitation of its species and in a way, a small part of Greece’s history. These jobs not only fit my personal beliefs and interests, but I also think that spending 8 weeks learning how to be successful at them will help me grow and develop my skills in each individual area.
Many people do not often consider Greece to be a country in need. However, the rural areas of any country, including Greece, need just as many volunteer efforts as the rural, domestic areas of the United States. Much of Greece’s communities are sustained by tourism of the beaches and historic sites that attract foreigners, but just as any other place that is sustained by tourism, Kanoni and greater Corfu deserve to create a community that is separate from tourist intrusion. Therefore, by volunteering with The Silva Project, I will be giving Kanoni the chance to create a facet of their community that isn’t defined by tourist intentions. In this sense, I think immersing myself in the Corfu community as a temporary resident and volunteer will force me to let go of any tourist tendencies, and therefore encourage me to leave my comfort-zone by truly requiring active and beneficial contribution to this community and this program. Furthermore, The Silva Project was established as a non-profit organization in 1998, making it a relatively new institution that needs as much help as possible to weave its threads into the fabric of its local society and the greater Greek community. Therefore, in many ways, the projects that have been assigned to me by The Silva Project are indeed beneficial to me in terms of my interests, but it would delight me even more to know that my personal interests are beneficial to the success of an organization that is striving to do so much for its community.
Overall, I feel that these positions that I have been given at The Silva Project this summer will enhance my academic goals as an English and Cultural Anthropology major and in helping me become experienced with business as a profession. I hope to be challenged by working other volunteers from all over the world who are coming together to create a valuable program for the people of Corfu who benefit from the actions of The Silva Project. I think that this specific program in Greece will give me a chance to travel to a part of the world whose rural areas and infant non-profit organizations are every bit as in need as those in the United States. As for the logistics of my trip, I will only be required to pay for my airfare since Ms. Steen allows The Silva Project’s volunteers to stay and eat in her home free of charge. In addition to this, my a Cappella group, Out of the Blue, will be flying expense-free to Turkey the week before I have agreed to begin my internship in Corfu. Therefore, I am requesting that the Doris Stroupe Slane Trinity Scholarship summer funds be applied to my airfare from Istanbul, Turkey to Corfu, Greece in May, and from Corfu, Greece to Raleigh, North Carolina at the end of my stay in July. I sincerely hope that I will be able to immerse myself into the community of Kanoni, Corfu and that my actions there will become a continuation of the cornerstones that are necessities for a sturdy foundation of success for The Silva Project and its goals.
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