Sarah Lee Rodriguez is a fourth year Global Health major. For her field experience, Sarah worked under the volunteer coordinator, Katrina Bruin, who allowed her to work one on one with the asylum seekers. Sarah's job would be to help translate for the asylum seekers, ask them what size of clothes they were to be able to get them clothes, and help serve food. Sarah was also involved in helping to coordinate activities for the children who did not always have something to do.
"We would play games like red light, green light and yellow light or even just color in coloring books. We would also take them to hospitals (depending on their case) and stay with them until they were attended."
During this experience, Sarah faced some challenges. One of the biggest challenges of her field experience was working with kids and learning how to manage them. Sarah reports not realizing that kids needed so much attention but she was able to overcome this by being around them more and realizing that there greatest desire was to play. Another difficulty was not being able to be of help to people who didn’t always trust the volunteers. This challenge gave Sarah the opportunity to educate herself about the field and knowing how to best answer questions.
This organization is in charge of helping the immigrant population coming from the San Ysidro detention center through their asylum process. Here, asylum seekers are provided with clothes, showers, food and guidance through this difficult and overwhelming process in their lives. For more information about how to get involved, please visit jfssd.org.
