{working title}: the week without wifi: week 2

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

the week without wifi: week 2

such a blurry photo, but delicious!

I spent the majority of this week without wifi (and sort of terrible cell service), so it was quite the adventure. I got lots of reading done (finished Chronicles of Narnia, "Bang Bang" by Chelsea Handler, parts of "Breathing Space: A Spiritual Journey in the South Bronx by Pr. Heidi Neumark--an ELCA Pastor). More grocery shopping, too. And even laundry at the laundromat (which conveniently had wifi)! All in all, it was an excellent week.

Outside of work, this week was filled with other activities including eating delicious homemade French bread (by my roommate!) and fancy cheeses, a tour of the mailroom at work (which also entailed eating ice cream at 10 am and it was awesome), going to Chicago Ribfest and a summer series performance by the Hubbard Street dance company.

taste of summer: Caprese salad all day e'reday!

I thought I'd give y'all a bit of a better idea of what I'm doing this summer. My official title is "Jennifer Sharrick, Intern for Constituent Engagement of ELCA World Hunger." Or some iteration of that. What it means is that I am part of the team that is in contact with our thousands of leaders in the Church that are passionate about combating hunger and poverty. For now that mostly means making sure databases of names are updated and accurate. I also support the work of the other team members in any way I can.

mailroom tour treats!

We have the National Youth Gathering coming up in July and the other interns and I are hard at work fleshing out grand plans for the space we will occupy there. We are inviting youth to considering water. Water is a huge part of our every day lives, but for many it's also a challenge. A challenge to walk (on average 3.7 miles) to the nearest clean water. This job of water retrieval is often for women, which gets into all sorts of questions about inequality of education, paid work, etc. It also gets into conversations about human rights for clean water. And what are the health consequences if people consume water that isn't clean (diarrheal and parasitic diseases)? Or are living near stagnant water (...mosquitos!)? We are creating a track that has obstacles that you will have to maneuver through while carrying a jerry can of 5 gallons of water to simulate the experience. There's also a hang out space area with other games about water and hunger. It should be really awesome. Look forward to photos in a few weeks!

Ribfest: pulled pork nachos

We are also re-vamping one of the educational curricular tools called the "Gender and Hunger Toolkit" with some members of the ELCA Young Adult cohort (I seriously promise that a blogpost--or two--is still in the works about my time at the UN). It's been both rewarding and challenging to consider how hunger, health, and gender are interrelated.

As part of the internship we had to do the Strengthsfinder tool. My strengths are input, learner, woo (!), communication, and individualization. I haven't had much time to look much into them yet, but I look forward to capitalizing on my strengths in the future.

We are already mid-week of week 3. I will try my best to be better about getting updates out in a more timely manner! Hope everyone is well.

It's like an ice cream popsicle/sandwich of yumminess!
Pretzel rod dipped in caramel and dark chocolate
as the stick with vanilla ice cream coated by a thick layer
of dark chocolate and pretzel pieces.
Rain can't stop my food festival going!