Name: Emma Diamond
Social Justice Group: Human Trafficking
Date of Fieldwork: December 20, 2017
Name of Organization: Restore NYC
Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Cindy Bombeeck (Safe Home Manager At Restore NYC)
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I did:
My group interviewed Cindy Bombeeck, the Safe Home Manager at an organization called Restore.
What I learned:
I learned a lot about my topic from this interview. Since Restore has a Safe Home, my group asked many questions about that. We learned that there are about seven women living in the Safe Home at once even though the house is large enough for eleven. Cindy said Restore has figured out that seven women at one time work the best because of the many different cultures and languages of the women. We also learned about many different empowerment activities and programs that women who enter the Safe Home take part in. For example, during a certain week, women living in the Safe Home switch off nights cooking food from their own culture and serving it to the rest of the women. Overall, I learned a lot about Human Trafficking, in particular, the Safe Home at Restore NYC.
What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:
During this interview, I learned that it is easy to get absorbed in a social justice topic and that doing social justice work takes a lot of commitment. Cindy Bombeeck started at Restore as a volunteer. She started volunteering at Restore through her church. After volunteering many times at Restore, Cindy realized that she wanted to become more involved. She quit her job at the time and began working at Restore. Cindy originally volunteered because she wanted to give back to her community, but she got to absorbed and involved in helping people who have been trafficked that she knew she had to continue this social justice work. This shows that social justice work requires a commitment to a topic and that once someone starts doing social justice work they get very involved in it.
