Monthly Musings: A Global Journey That Changed Our Local Perspective
From witnessing grassroots change to rethinking the role of Jewish engagement in the world, Jewish communal leaders who joined OLAM’s InterACT Global study trip to Rwanda in February share how the experience deepened their understanding of global responsibility. As we approach Passover, a time of reflection on freedom and transformation, their insights for our Rosh Chodesh Nissan blog offer meaningful lessons on how we can all take action to create a more just and compassionate world.
Repairing the world, healing the soul
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Taking part in OLAM's InterACT Global Study Trip to Rwanda was an unforgettable experience, from warm hospitality and breathtaking scenery to getting a glimpse into such a rapidly evolving country. The trip was a powerful reminder of one of BeWell's fundamental principles: our call to repair the world — tikkun olam — is intertwined with tikkun hanefesh, the work of healing your soul, growing, and finding balance so you can show up as your best self in the world. Over six days, we witnessed the incredible impact Jewish and Israeli organizations are making alongside Rwandan communities. I was inspired by how the partnerships we encountered were intentionally designed to build relationships and create sustainable change. It was a vivid depiction of ‘accompaniment’ in action — the idea of walking alongside others in their journey. However, such dedication - no matter which corner of the world you serve - can come with a heavy weight. Global humanitarian professionals confront some of the world's toughest issues. There’s so much that may benefit the mental health of any front-line professional, who often seek spaces and tools to process the intensity of their experiences and emotions. Providing workshops and trainings that help build resilience, manage boundaries and recognize signs of burnout can help professionals, no matter their field, navigate challenging environments. Policies around prioritizing rest and recharge can also help maintain long-term well-being and commitment to challenging work. I am grateful the trip helped me see the work of advancing well-being through the lens of accompaniment: Research shows that shared purpose, mutual support and trust all contribute to emotional resilience. Witnessing this first-hand reminded me that healing often happens in relationship, and in community - and that simply being present with others can be transformative. |
Bridging values
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The OLAM InterACT Study Trip provided me with an opportunity to step out of my day-to-day work and experience a new culture and community, giving me new questions and frameworks through which to view my values. The Jewish communal professional experience is deeply defined by, and rooted in, Jewish values. Through this trip I was able to engage with two, tikkun halev and tikkun olam, through new prisms, seeing the ways in which they manifest on a global scale. At moments, it can be easy to focus on the particulars of life, zooming in on our immediate spheres of influence. What this trip pushed me to do was bring my particular values and apply them on a more universal level, thinking deeply about how my values inform my life, and giving me new opportunities to engage with those values, balancing out the particular with a broader experience. Global service has the ability to do this for individuals – take us out of our routines and everyday lives, and help us see how our personal-held values can be connectors to a universal experience, bringing those lessons back to our home communities. A strength of the OLAM model is their ability to do this work in their programming, bringing Jewish leaders together with global service, international development, and humanitarian aid professionals and organizations to share the universal and particular with one another, bridging their worlds and helping to see themselves as part of a shared ecosystem. At a time of fracture, OLAM can help individuals see themselves as part of a whole, an element on display during this trip. This ability to engage in deep and intentional partnerships, those which recognize the nuanced needs of the individual, center their lived experiences and expertise and use one’s resources to develop creative solutions together, is an important model that can translate to any work of building and maintaining strong partnerships, not simply those working in global service. |
A powerful call to action
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Rwanda offered a profound lens into the intersection of local and global service, illuminating both the universal nature of human resilience and the importance of context-specific solutions. Engaging with Rwandan changemakers and organizations underscored the power of service—not as a one-size-fits-all approach but as a deeply relational, responsive act rooted in community needs. Experiences like this challenge us to move beyond transactional service toward true partnership, reinforcing that ethical global engagement requires humility, listening, and long-term commitment. Exposure to global service can be transformative. It expands our understanding of responsibility beyond our immediate communities, strengthening connections to shared values like tikkun olam (repairing the world) and chesed (kindness). It also exposes us to different mentalities, approaches, and methods for creating real, sustainable change. By exploring how others come together to address poor nutrition in hospitals, reduce gender violence, and boost graduation rates, especially for young women, we are pushed to reexamine the structures and approaches within our own local contexts. The lessons learned while engaging in global service don’t stay abroad. Instead, they inspire more thoughtful and impactful engagement back home, where we can bring a global lens to local challenges. Ultimately, global service cultivates a sense of shared humanity. It provides a unique opportunity to explore, in real time, our responsibility to others, both locally and globally. By deepening our connection to Jewish values like tzedek (justice), it strengthens our commitment to addressing pressing issues at home. This global perspective can serve as a powerful call to action at the local level, inspiring participants to apply what they’ve learned to enrich and impact their own communities, creating a ripple effect of meaningful, values-driven change. |
Expanding Jewish identity through global service
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It’s deeply meaningful for a group of Jewish students to engage in an immersive experience shaped around Jewish values, regardless of the specific destination. We know that students find immense benefit personally from exploring their own identity in a community of their peers, and doing so in a place that pushes them out of their comfort zone a bit always adds an extra level to that meaning. Rwanda is an ideal place for this kind of growth, and its why we are so happy we are able to send a number of Hillel students every year! |
Learning, remembering, and growing together
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One of the most powerful parts of the study trip to Rwanda was experiencing the learning exchange between Jewish and Rwandan communities, both of which share histories of trauma and resilience. One obvious example was the Agohozo Shalom Youth Village (ASYV), a boarding school founded by Israeli philanthropist Anne Heyman. Inspired by Israeli youth villages that were developed to care for orphans following the Holocaust, ASYV was established to serve orphans and now serves vulnerable young people around the country. The organization exemplifies the power of the Jewish community to apply its learnings to global challenges, while empowering local leaders to adapt models to their unique context. Rwanda also has much to teach the Jewish community. Our group was deeply moved by the Mybo Reconciliation Village, where survivors and perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide live side by side. The level of forgiveness was unimaginable to many of us, and apparently, we were not alone. A student at ASYV, just one generation removed from the Genocide, recounted speaking to a survivor of the Genocide and the forgiveness they showed for those that had killed her family. The student shared that she, just one generation removed from the atrocities, did not know if she could exhibit the same forgiveness. For many of us, this reinforced the urgency of preserving collective memory. While Rwandans dedicate extensive time to remembrance—a full week off of work at a minimum—Jewish observance of Holocaust Remembrance Day and Tisha B’Av is more limited as compared to other Jewish holidays. The experience challenged us to consider how the Jewish community might further elevate these moments of reflection and collective memory, especially when Holocaust survivors are no longer alive to tell their stories. We of course cannot always travel across the world to experience these learning exchanges. But we can share our knowledge about communities around the world, as our group is now equipped to do in a small way for Rwanda. We have a responsibility to learn from other communities, and share the lessons of the Jewish community, in service of creating a more just and compassionate world. |
