application for potential interns, community historians, & other volunteers

Please return to: Texas After Violence Project, P.O. Box 41476, Austin 78704
or e-mail to info@texasafterviolence.org

After you return this application, we will be in touch with you to schedule an interview -- OR -- bring it with you to the next training session (but please let us know you are coming!)

The Texas After Violence Project is not an advocacy organization, but one devoted to listening to people who are directly affected by serious violence in Texas; any part of the investigation or prosecution of of such crimes; the capital punishment process; incarceration; Death Row, or executions themselves.

We listen with empathy, without judgment, without argument, and without attempting to change the mind of any person who shares his or her experiences with us. If you are not willing or able to listen in this manner, the Texas After Violence Project is probably not the right place for you to contribute your time, skills and energy. If you are able to listen in this manner and want to work with us, we invite you to continue with this application.

1. Name

What do you prefer to be called? (If you would like to be addressed by a title and your last name, please tell us.)

2. Getting in touch with you.

Street Address:

City:

Zip Code:

Mailing address, if different:

Evening phone:

Daytime phone:

E-mail address if you have one:

What’s the best way, day, and time to reach you?

3. How did you find out about the Texas After Violence Project? If a particular person or persons recommended us to you, would you please tell us who?

4. Tell us a bit about yourself. Please write as much as you want.

5. How long have you lived in the city or county where you now live?
If you have lived for any significant period of time in another place or places, please tell us where you have lived and for approximately how long. We don’t need your exact address, just towns or regions and countries, so that we can have a sense of where you are from.

6. Work experiences. What kind of work, paid or not, do you do or (if retired or not currently employed) have you done most recently? What has been your favorite job? Why?

7. Interests. What kinds of things do you like to think or read or learn about? What interests you, what do you wonder about, what do you wish you knew, what do you want to learn? If you are in school, what are you studying?

8. Language(s). What language(s) do you speak, read, or write fluently? How well are you able to understand the oral communications of native speakers of that language or those languages?

9. Interest in the project. What about this training or about the Texas After Violence Project interests you? Are there any experiences you’ve had that draw you to this work?

10. Your ideal place in the project. How do you see yourself fitting in with the Texas After Violence Project? What kind of work would you be willing and able to do? What would you most like to do? What sets of skills might you bring to the project? (Not knowing is an okay answer!)

11. Your hopes for the project's role in your life. Please let us know if you are hoping that this work would contribute to your growth or path in some particular way.

12. Motivation, initiative, and self-direction. Please describe two examples in which you took major responsibility for some project, whether a research project of your own, or for a collective, such as an organization or group. (A personal example might be writing a thesis, dissertation, or book. A collective example might be organizing a children's program or volunteer project or fundraising event.) We're looking for any example that demonstrates self-initiative: that you can take an idea and "run with it" without someone else telling you what to do or looking over your shoulder every step of the way.

13. Your writing. Please attach or enclose an example of your non-fiction prose. This writing sample should contain approximately 500 to 1000 words.

14. Your support system. Listening to stories of violence might cause people to feel distressed, weighed down, overwhelmed, and sad. Please tell us if you have an effective support system in place (emotional, spiritual, communal, whatever is relevant to you) to help you through such periods. What would you do with these feelings?

15. What else is important? Is there anything else you would like us to know about you?

16. Do you have any questions for us?

17. Your suggestions. Based on what you know or have heard about us so far, do you have any suggestions (of any kind) for us?

18. References. Please list three people whom we could call or write, with their phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses. These should be people who know you well and who have known you for a significant length of time.

We will be asking your references about these characteristics, which are the most important qualifications for participating in the project:
- reliability
- trustworthiness
- initiative
- commitment to self-knowledge, to becoming increasingly self-aware
& your willingness and ability to
- listen carefully
- listen with empathy and without judgment
- put aside personal beliefs, opinions and biases when listening to someone else’s experiences
- challenge yourself
- push yourself beyond your current comfort level
- work with others
- give and accept mutual constructive criticism so as to continually learn from each other and our own mistakes, thus improving everyone’s work

Thank you for your interest! We look forward to meeting you.