Community Service in Other Countries: My Trip to Budapest

It is clear that Budapest and other Eastern European destinations are becoming hot spots for travelers. Just by taking a look at Arthur Frommer's blog, you can see how prevalent travel deals are to Budapest and Prague, two amazing Eastern European cities, one of which I just had the pleasure of visiting.

View of Buda from the Pest side. Courtesy of Rebecca Rochman

On my trip to Budapest, I did not get the typical tourist experience. I went on a trip through Texas Hillel and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. According to the Texas Hillel website,
these were the goals of my trip:

• To learn about the long history of Jewish life in Hungary and to get to know today’s Hungarian Jewish community & what it takes to rebuild Jewish life following the Holocaust and years of Communist rule.
• To lend a hand by painting & refurbishing Jewish community spaces, facilitating activities for children-at-risk & repairing homes of elderly in need.
• To connect with the Jewish value of pursuing justice. Discussions before and during the trip will explore our social responsibility and how Jewish values inform the decisions we all make.
• To connect with the Jewish community of Budapest and with Jewish European peers. We will spend Shabbat at local congregations. You will also have the chance to interact with your Hungarian peers throughout the trip.
• To bring stories and lessons of the trip back to members of the Texas Jewish community in order to help support the Austin and Hungarian community over the long term.

As you can see, this was not your typical trip involving traipsing around the city, taking bus tours, and visiting all of the historical sites. However, referring back to Frommer's blog, more and more people are taking this volunteer tourism approach to their vacations. They, like me, want to experience a city through and through while also being able to serve the community in some capacity.

Even though my trip was only a week long, I felt that I grew as a person and that I made an impact on the Hungarian Jewish community. Here are some highlights of my trip that I found enriching and educational to my life:

• We went to Lake Balaton to meet with counselors of the Szarvas Camp who work with Jewish children from around the world for a summer. They help enrich their Jewish lives, being that many of these children did not even know they were Jewish until later on in life. 

• In one day we danced with mentally disabled adults and also played with kindergarten aged children at The Lauder School in Buda. This was by far my favorite day. The little girl I played with took my camera and had a photoshoot with her friends. Also, the most enriching part of this day was seeing that you can communicate kindness in any language. I did not speak a lick of Hungarian and neither of these groups spoke English yet we were still able to laugh, play and dance with no issues at all. 

• We cleaned out an old fabric shop to turn it into a charity store in which people in need can come and shop with dignity. This took hours and hours of our day, but was so rewarding to see our hardwork payoff. The shop was clean at the end of the day and everyone in our group felt great knowing that we could do our part to help out people in need. 

• The last weekend of the trip was an incredible experience in which our group was able to meet with teens from the international Jewish community. We were able to exchange perspectives on our religion and culture in our lives. This was also the most fun as they showed us the nightlife of Budapest and we bonded just like any other college age students would. They were so much fun and my group is trying to go to Switzerland next year to see some of them.  

Part of the photo shoot done by the kindergartners at The Lauder School. Hana(pictured above) love taking pictures of everyone. Courtesy of Rebecca Rochman

Me and my new international friend, Debora, from Florence, Italy. Courtesy of Rebecca Rochman

Some of the girls on our trip smiling with the mentally disabled people we spent time and danced with. Courtesy of Rebecca Rochman.

Part of the group after a completed day of work fixing up the future charity shop. We sure were smelly at the end of the day! Courtesy of Jessica Blair Goodman.

Overall, the trip was a huge success, with both the Hungarians and the Americans mutually benefiting from each others presence. I had the most amazing experience of my life, and cannot wait to continue doing short-term service projects like this. It can get me exposure to different cultures while simultaneously allowing me to serve local communities.

Although this trip was heavily based in the Jewish community, I am sure there are many different trips that allow for short term community service. I will certainly look into those and you all will be the first to know when I compile a list.

To compare this to my previous post on eco-tourism,  I think short-term service is a better option because you are helping the people. As much as I know the environment needs help too, I feel that as humanitarians, our first focus should be to help living, breathing people in need. So, shall I be the first to coin it? Let's all go out and experience some Volunteer Tourism!

Thanks for listening to my blather. Let me know about some of your favorite trips. See you next week!