I had the privilege of being a member of Serve The City Paris during my gap year in Paris. STCP is truly a community like no other. From the Board to the short-term volunteers, it is filled with some of the most motivated, idealistic, intelligent and interesting people I have ever met.<\/p>\n
Every food-distribution morning, I would enter Impact Cafe to be greeted by the pleasant hubbub of volunteers, old and new, chatting as they prepared bags of food and supplies for the distribution ahead. Everything would quiet down as Safi (operations manager and beating heart of Serve The City) would stand up on a chair and greet the volunteers in the kindly, teasing tone we all know and love. We would do a quick introduction, and one of us would give the \u201croute guidelines\u201d for any new volunteers. They are as simple as they are crucial:<\/p>\n
– Ask how much sugar people would like in their tea and coffee.<\/p>\n
– If someone rejects the food, wish them a good day and politely back off.<\/p>\n
– Do not take photos of people<\/p>\n
– Respect dietary restrictions<\/p>\n
– Always approach with a smile and a friendly greeting.<\/p>\n
– Do not wake sleeping people.<\/p>\n
– If you give out a salad, pair it with a fork.<\/p>\n
These guidelines, which I heard and repeated myself hundreds of times, have seeped into my own personal Logos: Whenever possible, give people choices. Never allow ego to get in the way of seeing people with full recognition of their humanity. Be thoughtful and genuine. Have equal, respectful, human-to-human interactions – or nothing at all.<\/p>\n
After the guidelines have been said, Safi takes a quick group photo. We all flash smiles. I hide behind someone taller. And off we go. The crowd streams toward various destinations: Gare de l\u2019Est, Ch\u00e2telet, Canal Saint-Martin, or the encampments beneath Jaures, Stalingrad, and La Chapelle. During the journey, I catch up with the other volunteers. It is rare that someone comes once and does not return. Over my time in Serve The City, I have befriended university students, PhD candidates, refugees, journalists, retirees, tourists, nannies, high school students, and teachers, speakers of French, English, Spanish, Arabic, Italian, Pashto, Dari, Farsi, Ukrainian, Polish, Bangla and Russian \u2026 STCP is a Community in the truest sense of the word. It is built by its diversity and shared ideals. Anyone and everyone is welcome at our weekend soup kitchens, our Language and Culture Exchanges, or our food distributions. All members are regarded as equal, as worthy, and as someone to learn from. We approach each other with kindness, curiosity and camaraderie. We support each other in difficult moments, and celebrate each other\u2019s successes.<\/p>\n
I value my time at Serve The City most of all for what it taught me about community. It seems to me that the most crucial factor towards successfully solving so many societal issues – systemic injustices, latent and overt conflict, gaps in housing, etc.- is our ability to perform the increasingly radical act of Community. In a world where we are pushed towards isolation and polarisation, STCP brings people together in joy, connection, and empathy in action. I cannot wait to return whenever I am back in Paris.<\/p>\n
By Mari-Elena Arutyunova<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had the privilege of being a member of Serve The City Paris during my gap year in Paris. STCP is truly a community like no other. From the Board to the short-term volunteers, it is filled with some of the most motivated, idealistic, intelligent and interesting people I have ever met. Every food-distribution morning, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":777714,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":777716,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777713\/revisions\/777716"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.servethecity.paris\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}