Returning home again - and seeing it in a new light

Erik Bengtsson, MBA / MA Education, 2009

We've been back from the New Orleans Service Learning trip for about a month now. I already feel like it was a long time ago, and yet that distance makes it easier to see how significant an experience it was for me.

With a nudge at a critical moment, the New Orleans Service Learning trip is changing the plot line of my life. This summer, I will be back in New Orleans to work for NOLA 180, a non-profit that aims to use the charter school it operates as a base to take over failed public schools. http://www.nola180.org/ I was focused on work in the social sector prior to the trip, but I wasn't dead set on New Orleans. What moved me was the realization that the city is at a crucial moment. There is considerable energy for progress and reform that could lead to significant shifts and lasting gains. While having the experience of the Service Learning Trip, I got excited about going back to NOLA to be a part of this process.

I should probably tell you that I grew up in New Orleans. I lived there through high school. My folks still live there. They were flooded in Katrina. It's has been a long, slow road to recovery. This trip was an important step.

For me and for many who know it well, New Orleans sparks mixed reactions. There are so many things I love about the city and that are part of me; and there are many problems and frustrations. Since the storm, this has been truer than ever. For many who were hit hard by the storm, there is a sense of frustration and fatigue. I feel this sometimes through my parents. Sometimes the disappointing headlines can be overwhelming.

One thing the trip did for me was to give me a booster shot of exposure to many dynamic, committed people who are in New Orleans, because they see possibility and because they intend to participate in change. We worked directly with entrepreneurs who had faced significant setbacks and who were charging forward to build businesses in a devastated community.
Our partner non-profit from the trip, Idea Village, http://www.ideavillage.org/, is staffed almost entirely with of the kinds of people I am talking about. Daryn Dodson is a great example. He is a GSB graduate who led the first two NOLA Service Learning trips before coming to work full time at Idea Village. This year, he sat on the other side of the table as a non-profit professional helping Jack Lynch and me to organize this trip and carry on the tradition he started. There has been a flood of talent into the city since the storm - particularly young people, social sector professionals, entrepreneurs, and native sons and daughters of the city who had left the nest. These people bring a palpable presence to the city - literally. (I noticed that nightlife is blossoming at local venues and music spots and the crowd looks and talks different these days.) It was something to see. On a similar note, it is encouraging to see promising initiatives bubbling up in many aspects of NOLA and Louisiana society - from government to the private sector to the social sector to education.

Before this trip, the last time I was in the city on any kind of a regular basis was two years back. I was working with New Schools for New Orleans as a consultant and helping them write their initial business plan. That was a cathartic experience for me, and it represented some of the most meaningful work I've done. It was also a very intense experience because of the great needs of the startup, because of the way I threw myself into it, and because of what I was going through personally at the time. I left exhausted and a bit burned out.

This trip had a healing impact on me. It was a chance to return and see the city afresh through the eyes of my GSB peers. It was a chance to share the things I love about the city (like creole food or brass funk music) and feed on the enthusiasm with which they were received. It was a chance to return home with new friends. (We had dinner with my parents and visited the carcass of my childhood home.) Perhaps most importantly, we joined with others and worked hard to make a contribution. Through that process, we shared experience that will now bind us together. The trip was everything I wanted for myself and for the group. When it was all done, I felt quiet and at rest. That is a special thing - it doesn't happen often. I am tremendously thankful for this experience and for all who made it possible.