Short introduction to the importance of raising awareness and how it connects to VIA’s Way of Dialogue. 

“Our activity in this Way of Dialogue is more often work for social change.  We are more interested than before in devoting our energy to work with the poor for structural change.  The emphasis is more on acts of justice than on acts of mercy on behalf of the poor.”

When we speak of the way of dialogue in the VIA framework, we speak of a time where the people in communities we serve begin to share their stories with us. The problems that they voice are not often those that we once saw and thought to fix. As their stories become more familiar, we begin to join in some of their struggles, especially those struggles towards acknowledgement and recognition. A new form of service presents itself as we seek to promote the voice of the voiceless. Though we still work with those we serve on a personal level to address simple immediate needs, we also seek to work with them to address their more complex and long-term needs. On this, T. Wiesner says:

“We also become engaged in the struggle for social change.  This usually leads to involvement in such things as protest, boycotts, demonstrations, actions of resistance, even civil disobedience, arrest, imprisonment.”