Feb 23 hw (ADOVAH response)

I think everyone at one point or another have experienced multiple forms of advocacy, I knew how to define advocacy in a sense of what actions we take towards things we have strong emotions for, but I realize now advocacy is a multi-sided issue. From what I got from chapter 5, advocacy is defined basically as what we personally value in terms of how we think we should live and shape our lives. And because of this, many aspects of our life cause us to act as advocates of things we think are important. In the case of “AVODAH” I believe that when religious affiliations, practices, and beliefs came together, it helped both the volunteers, and the programs targets in ways they didn’t know. Their advocacy was shaped their ideas in a big way. All the volunteers, had a common ground, and that was that they were all Jewish. And I think that this was great also, because it brought them all together in a way that they could all understand, and helped them all learn more about their heritage. And at the same time, the relationships they formed with each other, and helped them learn new things about others from other parts of the world. Not to mention those that they helped as well, the low income families and homeless. The want to make a difference in suffering communities was brought up by the ambitions of the other volunteer’s, and organizations overall purpose. I believe that this mixture of those around them, and their personal strive to want to help our other communities shaped their advocacy in a positive way, and getting back the experience and pleasure of knowing that they are helping out those in need.