Since my last blog post, my internship has picked up a lot–not that it wasn’t busy before, however I can officially say that my training period is over. Now, my work days are packed with meetings with participants that I am leading and my independent work has really taken off. Honestly, I love it. When the work day ends, I do not want to leave. Not only this, but sometimes I do not feel like I should–the work is never done and all of it is urgent. I think that this is the challenge of human rights work, that, among other things, you are entrusted with the pressing matters of many people to help them find solutions to the best of your ability and yet, somehow, hit pause at 5 pm. How can you attend to the rest of your life knowing that their needs continue?  Since getting to know my participants better, I find that I am very cognizant of this when I leave work. What are they doing now? How are they managing without the food stamps that were delayed? Or how are they handling the stress of impending parole expiration and not knowing how they file for asylum? How are they handling the loneliness this evening–will they make it through the night?
It has been really eye opening and I am in constant awe of these individuals. Every participant I have met and engaged with has astonished me with their strength and the unfathomable things they have gone through–the fact that they are here and standing is a miracle in and of itself. The fact that I might be able to help them, or at least help hold the weight of their story, is a true honor. It is also scary though. There are a number of examples recently in which I am unable to find solutions and I am deeply aware of how this failure affects the lives of the people we serve. While I get to go home each night and “clock out,” they live with the reality and the consequences of a job undone or a system that is broken. I want so desperately to find a solution or for something, for once, to finally go their way, but at times I am worried that I won’t be able to. Enter the hard lesson I am learning about human rights work: limited time, funds, and resources means that the work, which is never done, sometimes cannot even be finished and there are real costs to that. This is really scary and disheartening. 

All this to say, since coming to my internship and really getting involved with participants I am learning that I deeply love this work–I love talking with participants and doing whatever I can to help. I am shocked at how little I have been cognizant of their circumstances before now and find that, being aware now, my life cannot be the same. I would like to pursue this work as my profession, but I am also scared because I know a lot of disappointment awaits and I run the risk of failing–and people being harmed in the process. I have always been an idealist so this hard reality is not something I am really reckoned with–it is not something I want to accept. I am learning though that there are times where I can’t do everything and I need to accept that–do my part and fight to make the system better, but be prepared to lean on those I am close to and work with to process and work through those times where I cannot. While I don’t have an answer for this, I can say with certainty that this frustration makes me convinced that this is the work I want to do.

– Katharina Depenthal, Heartland Alliance Health