Second Interview Questions

1. Why was House of Ruth started?
2. Where did you attend school (college)?
3. What was your major?
4. What is your position at House of Ruth?
5. When did you realize you wanted to be a ______?
6. How did you start working here?
7. How long have you worked here?
8. Do/have you volunteer at other organizations like this one?
9. What is your favorite thing about your job?
10. Do you have personal "ties" to this issue?

Blog 4: Project Reflection and Working EQ

The Pentagon:

1.       Positive Statement: One positive thing that has happened so far while beginning the senior project is that I found something that I could see myself doing in the future. I really like the job my mentor has and she told me that when I turn 18 I will be able to take the volunteer training program and that will be a really good experience for me plus it will help me get started if this working in Domestic Violence if it is something I would  like to continue doing. Also, I feel like I am more knowledgeable about this topic and ways to help prevent it. I have learned about places and events held to help victims or to inform people, which I did not know about before.

2.       EQ Content: My first interview has helped me improve the understanding of my topic because my interviewee was very detailed and specific in her answers. She is so passionate about what she does, she just kept giving me more and more useful information; a lot of facts and statistics about, my topic, it really helped me better understand.

3.       What has worked for you in the senior project? The fact that I was able to get service learning and find a mentor worked out really well, especially because I found mine so early on. A lot of my peers still have not found a mentor and I think that is kind of preventing them from taking full advantage of the project. Without my service learning/mentor, I would not be as informed and passionate about it.

4.       What hasn’t worked so far? I haven’t really experienced anything that has not worked out just yet. I have been able to get my service learning, I have a mentor, and I have been able to get the required amount of research for the past research checks.

5.       Finding Value:

·         What is the best way to teach prevention? How can people become more aware? Where does the abuse start?

·         I really would like to continue working with Domestic Violence in my future, so I hope that by working with my mentor I will be able to get my foot in the door and make a connection in this field. I also hope to help out with many of the events House of Ruth holds so I can gain more knowledge and experience and even learn more about clients and their stories.

·         Next I would like to talk to Alyssa. She is iPoly alumi, who now works at House of Ruth. I would like to speak with her because she has gone through iPoly and this project before so she can relate and give me some advice, also because she works where I do service learning so maybe she can give me some tips on how to help clients there and how to become more involved.

Blog 5a.

Problem Statement

1.  My topic is Domestic Violence 
2. The main issue in my topic is that people are not as aware of how big of an issue this is as they should be and it is almost seen as normal. To solve this problem I would help with the advertising of organizations such as House of Ruth to show victims of abuse that there are other alternatives for them and also to show people that they can help in the process of stopping the violence by volunteering.  Once I solve this problem, and people are more aware, I can start prevention groups to stop the abuse cycle and also support groups for people who have been victimized and now realize that it is wrong and not normal. 
3. Another issue would be that not enough men are involved in volunteering at organizations such as House of Ruth. This is an issue because even though men can be abused too, the main victims are women and if we have more men who volunteer they can give speeches and presentations showing other young men and/or adults that abuse is wrong and there are other way to take out anger and have a healthy relationship. It is hard for women to give these types of speeches to other men because they can't really relate but if there was a non-abusing man up there doing a presentation, it could show other men that it is good not to abuse, they need someone to relate too. What I would do to solve this problem would be to show non-abusing men that organizations like House of Ruth or Project sister are not only for women to work at. To show them, we could maybe advertise organizations like the ones I mentioned above in ways that men would be able to relate to, like show them they can be involved and help out in ways that are "masculine" by like, lets say, teaching children who are in the shelters to play sports. Once this problem is solved and more men are volunteering, we can send them out to do prevention assemblies in places like the Boys Republic or high schools to stop the violence because I think if we can get boys/men to help abusers change their ways, the abuse rates could potentially go way down!

UPDATED PROBLEMS

• Violence is normalized
• Victims are blamed
• House of Ruth lacks staff, resources and funding
• House of Ruth is not able to "get into" every home because victims are isolated
• Abuse is a cycle
• Men are too afraid to speak up if they are being abused because they are embarrassed or feel less masculine
• Victims are too afraid to admit or tell someone that they are being abused  

Blog Three: Interview Preparation

Who do You Plan to Interview?

  My for first interview I will be interviewing Marina Wood, my mentor from House of Ruth. I will be interviewing her because she is the only connection I have right now with my topic and also because she has taught me so much already and she is very knowledgable so I would like to learn more about how she got started working with House of Ruth and what makes her so passionate about it.

Any Additional Questions?

• What made you want to major is Woman's Studies?
• How did you start working at House of Ruth?
• What interests you about working with Domestic Violence?
• What is your view on Women's empowerment?

Blog Two: Topic Choice

               My topic is Women’s Abuse. I chose this because I wanted my senior project to be something where I would be able to help people or make a difference, and although I picked this topic very randomly, I am really glad I chose it because I can eventually help make a difference and I really enjoy my service learning and it is something I can potentially see myself continuing to do in the future.

                As an Ipoly Citizen I plan to take everything Ipoly has taught me about projects and how to best complete them in a group and use that information too successfully handle my independent senior project. I will be responsible for everything that happens and use all of my resources as best I can to help me get through this final project. Ipoly has shown me to think outside of the box and never stay within the guidelines, I was taught to go above and beyond and that is what I plan to do.

                As an Effective Communicator I plan to take all of the critical and factual information I get and make people more aware of how serious of an issue domestic violence is. Throughout tradeshows and my two hour presentation I will hopefully be able to get the word about abuse out there, so people are more informed about the issues, causes and how to get help.

                As an Effective Learner I plan to take everything I learn about through the internet, books, interviews, service learning and videos and put it all into my project so that I can share what I have learned with others. This will help me to become and effective learner because I will be doing research independently and learning on my own so everything I learn about will be useful in some way because I went through a process to discover it, whether it be looking for articles that pertain to my topic or leaning a new fact in my mentorship.

                As an Effective User of Technology I will use my computer skills to make posters and flyers for different events that House of Ruth will host and also put my creativity and knowledge of technology into different components in the senior project.

Blog One: Summer Mentorship Component

Mentorship

Literal (Know)
I began my service learning at House of Ruth on August 8th. On the first day I put together training binders and made sure they were all "perfect", I worked from 11-3. The second time I worked was for 2 hours on the 14th. I had homework, which was to read some articles she emailed me so when I first got there we went over the articles and asked my opinion. Then I retyped some information that went into the binders and copied and filed papers. My third day was the 16th, I had homework before then as well where I had to read a chapter of a book she gave me and write a summary, when I got there we discussed the chapter and she gave me more information about House of Ruth. After that I finished some more binders and scanned papers. I worked for 2 hours. My last day of my ten hours was the 21st. I had to read two more chapters and we talked about those for a bit then I copied pages out of books she wants me to read and then I revised the "master" binder I worked for two hours. In total, I worked 10 hours. My mentor is Marina Wood. (909) 868-8010 or mwood@houseofruth.inc.org
Literal (Need to Know)
Some questions that were raised would be about general information about House of Ruth, like who started it and why. Also, more detail about what is done for the victims they take in. Marina explained a lot to me about what they do at House of Ruth and the different things they do and are involved in so it would be nice to know more about events they are started. She also told me how men are not really involved with House of Ruth and how there are not many volunteers that are guys so finding a way to get men more involved would be helpful and learning different and new ways to advertise the organization so more people know about it because it is greatly needed.
The most important thing I gained from this experience would be all of the information I was given. I realized how big of a problem domestic violence is and how more people need to be informed about it. I have only done 10 hours there and I have already learned so much! My mentor is very informative and helpful towards my project.
The way I picked my topic was very randomly. My boyfriend and I were swimming one night and he was telling me about senior year since he already graduated and I still hadn’t picked my topic yet. We sat there and just threw out different topic ideas and the general idea of like “women” was thrown out and I remembered that my grandma had mentioned House of Ruth before and I asked her about it and called and I they let me do my hours there.

Mentorship Log