About the author
Karim Itani is a student at the American University of Beirut. Currently he is studying to attain his Bachelor of Business Administration with a concentration in management and organizational behavior.
my experience volunteering with eti
As an eager 16-year-old, I was in pursuit of a one of a kind volunteering experience to fulfill a community service requirement for my school during summertime. Never did I think that my volunteerism at ETI would imbue my then-nascent sense of stewardship, nor did I anticipate the impact my experience in the familial knit of the ETI family would have on my life. Today, my 19-year-old self looks back at the ambiguity and surprise that had stricken me three years prior as I reflect on the day when I joined ETI to volunteer for Camp Rafiqi at the American University of Beirut.
In this photo: Karim stands next to Sara Minkara, ETI’s Founder. They are both smiling, and Karim holds a volunteer certificate.
The main contributor to my awe was surely my first-ever up-close and personal encounter with people with visual impairments. On that day, I had, for the first time, been reintroduced to the power underlying the hood of disability. Being brought up in Beirut, the culture that I had absorbed from my community had no ill will for people with disabilities. However, they also frankly had no concern in conversing over the gravity of the subject of disabilities. My training from the ETI team broadened my awareness to include myself in healthy discussions about disabilities and to acknowledge the proper protocol for doing so. “Pity” was off the table, as it was a shameful narrative often pertaining to disabilities - hiding behind a veneer of sympathy.
In this photo: Karim stands and is speaking to two women who can be seen to the side of the photo. He gestures with his hands.
I was responsible as a volunteer to run co-generative dialogue sessions with the visually impaired youth participants, whereby we met daily and tried to use positive transformative problem-solving strategies to solve mundane or dire problems the campers were facing. The recurrent strategy proposed by each of the focus groups in some shape or form was that we should all listen more and empathize with each other. Dialogue on empathy and active listening is not unheard of and is not new in roundtables discussing inclusion. Nonetheless, the participants who had visual impairments had all unanimously felt that no matter how loud their voices were, they weren’t loud enough. In the end, we reached the conclusion that volume is not the issue when the recipient is not listening. The fine line between hearing and listening is none other than empathy.
In this photo: Karim stands at the front of a classroom with an ETI instructor, alongside an ETI banner.
I found that listening makes the difference between empathy and sympathy. Funny, isn’t it?! We, as humans, have a natural inclination to talk, however, we need to frequently train ourselves to listen. And it was here at ETI when I experienced an epiphany through which I discovered what had unknowingly accompanied me for many years. It wasn’t that I didn’t listen or glazed over anyone conversing with me, but I had not listened well enough to the story being told by the storyteller. Each and every one of us is a teller of our unique individual story. We have to listen carefully to these different and diverse stories in our lives, and through empathy synergize them whenever we can to create harmony and aggregate grander stories.
Today, as an Ambassador of Inclusion, I am proud to have the ability to create harmony and build bridges between community members from a wide variety of walks of life, to accelerate authentic inclusion.
In this photo: Karim sits at a desk speaking with a young boy who is an ETI participant. In one hand Karim holds an art project the participant created and in the other he holds the boy’s hand. A female volunteer also bends down to talk to them.