From Each Story, A New Perspective

           Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk is one of those rare works of talent that is so authentic I find myself making connections to it in everyday life. I have thought back to her talk several times since it was first played in class, and have also wondered what about her words have the ability to resonate so deeply with me. All too often, I hear or read works by experts or professionals in a field that I deem inspiring or moving in the moment, but am quick to forget and never return to once it is over. But something about Adichie’s talk causes me to think twice, and I have a feeling about why that is: It calls the ugly truth out from its hiding place in the subconscious, where it has been suppressed for so long, and forces me to confront it. Just when I thought she was done saying all there is to say on the matter of the single narrative, she found novel ways to highlight my own part in perpetuating it, through a varied sampling of subtle and nuanced stories of her own.

            Although I found all of her stories insightful, there were two in particular that I can relate to the most. The first one has to do with her encounter with her roommate, who projected her cultural stereotypes onto Adichie in a variety of ways, such as asking her to reveal her “African” music, for example. Although Adichie joked back that she only had a Mariah Carey CD on her, I wonder how many times she has had to endure such stereotypes and the impact that such countless interactions have had on her. Although it is very difficult for anyone to admit, we are probably all guilty of the same type of action engaged in by Adichie’s roommate at some point or another. Even if we do not physically engage in such behaviors, our thoughts can be just as poisoned in terms of reflecting skewed beliefs about others based on culture, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status or any other incomplete indicator of a person’s character that distorts our perception of them and of the people “like” them.

            The second story that I have found myself return to at various points in the past weeks, and once in section, was the story Adichie told about her trip to Mexico. During her trip, Adichie found herself giving Mexicans a single story of being a kind of people who “sneak” and “smuggle” things across the border, among other stereotypes, and was surprised when she saw some Mexicans laughing in the marketplace. She expressed how she was very ashamed of herself because she felt hypocritical that she bought into the single story of another people, while criticizing those who do the same to her when they lump her in a group called “Africans” (almost as if it is a country, she points out). Adichie’s revelation gave me the strength to admit that I am not unlike her and perhaps the rest of the human race in my hypocrisy of judging other whole groups based on a single, often arbitrary, and always incomplete factor: country of origin.

            From these two stories in particular I have gained new perspectives that will guide me in my practice experience. From the first story, I would like to always remember to carefully monitor my thoughts, making sure that my perception of others is not distorted by skewed beliefs perpetuated by stereotypes. From the second story, I will keep in mind the natural tendency to think or act hypocritically about another “group” of people.

            Which of Adichie’s stories do you most identify with from her TED talk? What did you learn from them?

            

SNAP cuts

            September 19^th, 2013 under pressure from the Tea Party, a mostly Republican voted pushed a bill through the house to eliminate loopholes, ensure work requirements, and put “us on a fiscally responsible path.” The program cost almost $80 billion last year, and is projected with the $40 billion cut to cost $700 billion in the next decade. Following the precedent set by PROWRA, adult beneficiaries would still be required to work or be in a job-training program, but also now there will exist a 3-month maximum and a requirement to pass drug tests for benefits. The bill also designates recipients of other social welfare assistance ineligible.

            In April 2013, 15.2% of Americans received SNAP (30% of which were working and 72% to households with children). Two weeks prior to the vote the Agriculture Department reported that in fact 17.6% households did not have enough to eat in 2012 due to lack of resources to provide food. Two days prior to the vote the Census Bureau reported that 46.5 million people live in Poverty in America (15%). These numbers beg further questioning to the claim that the program had “grown out of control.”

            Furthermore, none of these numbers take into account the many new trends, such as boomerang-kids and doubling-up on housing to share costs. Almost 4 million recipients will be cut from the rolls in two months, disproportionately youth. Although the economy may be improving, a strikingly high percentage of Americans live well under the poverty line. It is difficult to measure how much of an impact in-kind benefits as SNAP make on the quality of lives. Nonetheless, I feel that the social welfare network is called a safety net for the reason to catch individuals in moments as these- not only during a recession, but for the years following. While overall things may be looking up, things have not improved at all for most hard-working, yet underemployed American families.

            At The Suitcase Clinic, we don’t get many requests for assistance from families with youth, unless already placed in a shelter. Many parents are afraid of asking for help when suffering extreme poverty due to the fear CPS will take their children. I really wonder how we will be able to evaluate the tremendous impact of this drastic cut as it plays out this coming year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/us/politics/house-passes-bill-cutting-40-billion-from-food-stamps.html 

http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb13-165.html

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/err-economic-research-report/err155/report-summary.aspx#.UnM_zRaDd8s

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/opinion/another-insult-to-the-poor.html?hp&_r=0

New Roots and Help from an Alum

In my last blog post, I talked about the lack of community participation I observed on my first day of working with my PE. Since then, I have gone to work with the organization four times. While working with them, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a GPP alum with whom I was able to have a long conversation about the community participation at City Slickers. I found out that the peak season for participation is always in the summer and spring, because community members tended to have more free time to put towards the community gardens. I had joined the mission towards the end of the harvest season where the volunteers that remain are those with steady schedules or do not have to be at home to take care of their kids. She did however point me to another project that still holds participation from the community.   

If you ever visit the main office of the organization, you’ll encounter four huge posters with blueprints and layouts of a future site, and you definitely get the feeling that the project is extremely important.

For a little over a decade, my organization has been planting, cultivating, and seeding in “community farms” they set up where ever they could find empty space that got a little sun. They cleared debris, tested for chemicals, installed planter boxes, and shoveled compost on any lands volunteered to them by members of the community which included backyards, parks, and schools. However, after all of the work that went into these community farms, the owners of these lands would often find another use for the land and kick them out. This not only caused the closure of a community farm and decrease in available produce at the farm stands but also interrupted the coming together of the community. Both parties lost a lot of time, money, and effort in these closures.  

In December 2012, the organization purchased its first plot of land, a former industrial lot of 1.4 acres , and it is the only parcel in West Oakland deeded to urban agriculture use. This groundbreaking investment gave roots to the organization and urban agriculture in West Oakland as well as finally allowed the organization to provide the community with something permanent, a sort of promise to the community that this food movement is something meant to last.   

Those four huge posters in the office are the product again of the community and allies coming together to build a community park that combines edible gardening with learning and play. Neighborhoods, allies, partners, and policy makers contributed to and celebrated this purchase.  As preconstruction started this year, community engagements meetings are being held to design the park, name the farm and park, identify collaborating partners, and plan future programming. A board of community members is currently in the works to collaborate with the board of the organization to ensure that the final product is something for the community from the minds of the community.

Street Science

Last week while prepping for my welfare brief, I went in to Professor Talwalker's office hours to get some guidance on the presentation. We ended up talking a bit about my PE in relation to my major, and I expressed a desire to have my PE unify my interest in Environmental Science and along with my interests in poverty and public health. I've been meaning to find a way to incorporate my ES Senior Thesis with my PE, but I've been at a loss for how to go about that. While in office hours, Professor Talwalker recommended that I look into a book called Street Science by Jason Corburn from CED. Professor Corburn happened to be the very person who helped me find my PE by putting me into contact with his colleague, the Executive Director of the UHRC (my PE org) after I went in to his office hours after he gave a guest lecture in one of my classes last semester.

Based on Professor Talwalker's suggestion, I started reading Professor Corburn's book, and for the first time since I found my PE org, I felt a sense of excitement, a sense that I was stumbling onto something big. Street Science is about how the culture of expertise in Environmental Health has lead to the exclusion of community members from contributing to the process of gathering knowledge about their specific environmental health issues. Experts often enter into communities bringing along tools such as "risk assessment" and other statistical models, which they then implement and the results of which they then hand off to analysts whose job is to decide on politically viable policy items. Clearly this is not a particularly participatory model. Professor Corburn goes on to explain how there are numerous examples of how science is often conducted in communities using informal methods by community members concerned about their health. He provides an example of how in Brooklyn, a community organization called El Puente conducted a student-led community health survey project to investigate alarmingly high rates of asthma in their neighborhood which eventually led to a long term partnership with a non-profit called Community Information and Epidemiological Technologies (CIET). Examples such as these provide legitimacy to community knowledge. Corburn points out that when community members are involved in not just conducting research, but in deciding on the relevant areas of focus and on the most appropriate methods and frameworks (for example perhaps "risk assessment" is an inadequate model for a particular community), environmental health policy can transcend the level of superficial, token gestures of good-faith towards under-served populations.

Corburn's book consists of ethnographic research with community members in Brooklyn in order to explore this idea of what he calls "street science." One way I'm thinking about weaving my ES thesis into my PE is by looking into conducting ethnographic research (similar to what Professor Corburn did) while working with the women's groups established by my PE org, the UHRC in slums in India. Slums represent not only the intractability of poverty, but also urban environmental degradation at its worst. Surely there is a wealth of pragmatic knowledge that slum community members have regarding their own environmental health situations that could be invaluable in understanding what policies would be most effective in improving these situations.

Second First Day

Today was my first day at my second attempt at a practice experience. In my quest to find a GPP practice experience, I have encountered many setbacks, so it's been a very long process and I'm extremely happy I finally was able to start. I'll be working in La Clínica North Vallejo, a health clinic that serves low-income families. La Clínica North Vallejo is just one of over thirty La Clínica locations in the Solano, Alameda and Contra Costa counties.  

The mission statement is "to improve the quality of life of the diverse communities by providing culturally appropriate, high quality, and accessible health care for all". I was a bit confused when I was first given a tour of the clinic today. I thought that the North Vallejo location was just a primary health center, so I was overwhelmed when I learned of the many services just this one location offered. What surprised me is that they offer as many services, or even more than my first PE's at St. Anthony's. They have social workers and staff that work with families to find resources for all of their health needs. They also do help the homeless and very low-income in navigating through the health care system, not just giving them an appointment, but signing them up for health insurance, and then making sure they have the transportation to get to the appointment. 

As the volunteer coordinator was explaining all of the different services, I asked her if the clinic gets overwhelmed and she said, “we always are”! I don’t know how they organize and coordinate so many projects for this clinic. The volunteer coordinator herself is also the lead pharmacy tech and works with each individual to find low cost/no cost prescriptions; she also does so many other general tasks around the office.

My fist day was overwhelming because I was introduced to so many people who had many different job titles, I don't even think I remember one. Also, the whole clinic is a one story office-like building, some offices are attached and others aren't. So even though the clinic is small, it felt like a maze and I had difficulty finding my way around. Fortunately, there was another volunteer there who, if I needed to get to one place or another, would walk me there. 

 For today, I just did miscellaneous work within the administrative office. I’m not sure yet on the specifics of what my tasks will be, but honestly I’m just happy to finally begin my practice.

My first week at Asian Law Caucus

My first week at Asian Law Caucus

Last Tuesday and Thursday, I went to Asian Law Caucus (ALC) to start my practice experience. ALC is a nonprofit organization in San Francisco that provides free legal services mainly but not limited to low-income Asian Pacific Islander population in the area. Currently, the organization is particularly involved in advancing housing rights, worker’s rights and justice in the immigration process for the local low-income API Americans. I was filled with high expectations that I will be working directly with the attorneys there and that I will be making a significant change in one’s life by helping them win an important legal case. My 5 hr experience there was completely different from these expectations.

First, I was separate from the attorneys. The attorneys and civil advocates were busy working with the clients. Often they speak in Asiatic languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese if the clients feel more comfortable speaking in those languages. I was placed at a work station downstairs with the administration staff while all the attorneys were working upstairs on the first floor. Second, I learned that my major administrative task will be about filing all the case documents that have been settled or resolved. A stack of legal documents was put on my desk and I had to punch in all the data from the document into the database of the organization. This was to facilitate the attorneys’ resolution process in case the clients come back again with a new legal issue. It was truly mind-blowing to see so many legal documents that needed to be filed. Only the administrative staff and I were given the tasks to file these documents. The filing had mainly to do with immigration, housing and employment. Last week I focused on immigration which is usually about adjustment of status not deportation because the latter issue will require a prolonged effort of attorneys. This week, I will be working on filing the employment documents which have more bundles of testimonials.

What was shocking to me was the fact that I was not making a direct change in the clients’ lives. The documents I receive to file indicate that the legal cases have been resolved, not just started. The change in clients’ lives has been made already; I just had to make sure we keep that in our official history by filing them. This discouraged me a bit about my practice experience because I held such high expectations that I will be fighting for the clients’ lives at the court. In reality, I had to remind myself that this filing is part of the process to make it faster and easier for the organization to serve the clients and to get funding from the city.

Two other things I noticed. One aspect was that the organization lacked so much manpower for basic work. While legal representation and counsel are the essential part of ALC, administrative work from filing to assorting the documents and grant seeking needed more people. There were one fundraiser, one administrative staff and two volunteers including me who worked on these tasks which are fundamental to the well-functioning of the organization. I think this could be a unique hurdle for ALC or maybe it is a problem for many non-profit organizations in the United States today.

On the whole, while I was taken aback by the work of filing for various reasons this week, I will be working on different projects throughout my practice experience from rallying to helping with the actual cases. I guess doing the administrative work is the rite of passage for non-profit volunteers, learning to appreciate the ways in which works on the ground contribute to the workings of the organization.

Cultural Sensitivity Not So Sensitive After All

We have been talking about the necessity of attempting to understand the culture of the people with whom we will be interacting and its importance in ensuring cultural sensitivity. I however argue that the very culture that we’re trying to contextualize and dissect to make it understandable to the Western gaze can be and often is a propagation of hierarchal power structures. In order for NGOs, student volunteers and academics to gain this oft-touted cultural sensitivity as a means of respect and power equalizer, someone needs to observe and write down those cultural mores. Who authors the customs of the Malawians or the filial expectations of Chinese immigrants in Chicago? They are the academics and other privileged and Western players of developmental discourse.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie declares that the ability to create certain narratives imbues power to the creator and this insight is especially pertinent to the creation of a cultural identity as determined and propagated by not the indigenous populations but by outsiders on a quest for social comprehension. As a researcher, they have the ability to observe and then twist what they see to fit their political, religious or cultural narrative. Their viewpoints are then legitimized by their status as researchers and the system within which they operate. They are then able to disseminate their perspective on another group’s social identity while the indigenous populations are simply relegated to the role of the observed. The narrative is thus dominated by a single story. Zhou Daguan journeyed to Cambodia in the 13^th century on an exploratory mission to compile data on the Cambodians and he came back to China with salacious details about child brides and sexually rapacious women. His single story of Cambodian society dominates to this day because not only was it not contested but it was able to gain a wider audience than other narratives because of his social status. Just as Zhou Daguan was able to create one story about the Cambodians, researcher today are also creating a single story about the people they study, albeit with kinder intentions.  

Follow-up to Talwalker article and "To Hell with Good Intentions" article

One topic that I found interesting in class recently was what is raised in Professor Talwalker’s article that we read for class called "What Kind of Global Citizen is the Student Volunteer," which discusses how the positive intentions held by college students can be dampened by the inefficiencies and the profit-motives of the aid world industry. Coincidentally, for that week of class I was in a conversation in which a speech made by Ivan Illich called “To Hell with Good Intentions” was being discussed, which I would like to present to the class because I think that it is provocative and worth responding to. This speech even calls into question the basic premise of volunteer work outside of one’s community (whether national or international, but particularly internationally), and thus it seems that Illich would be dismayed by the work that each one of us will be undertaking at our practice experiences. It seems that Illich would disregard the various positive motivations that Talwalker explains in her articles and that many of us in class have talked about in driving your desire to volunteer. 

For those of you that have not read this speech, it was a critical address given to the 1968 Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects, which means that he was speaking to a large group of students preparing to go on mission trips into poor villages in Mexico to partake in voluntary service. Illich highlights the apparent dangers of paternalism inherent in any voluntary service activity and particularly in international service activities. I will attach the link to the full speech at the bottom of this post, but some highlights of the article are as follows:

1. Questioning the persistence that students have to volunteer: “Your insight, your very openness to evaluations of past programs make you hypocrites because you- or at least most of you- have decided to spend this next summer in Mexico, and therefore, you are unwilling to go far enough in your reappraisal of your program.” 
2. Asking what impact a volunteer will have in a community: “All you will do in a Mexican village is create disorder. At best, you can try and convince Mexican girls that they should marry a young man who is self-made, rich, a consumer, and as disrespectful of tradition as one of you.”
3. Criticism on international volunteering: “If you have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riots here at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate with those whom you speak. And you will know when you fail. If you insist on working with the poor, if this is your vacation, then at least work among the poor that can tell you to go to hell.”

In regards to our class, I am wondering how we could respond to these arguments that Illich makes. In regards to his first point that I highlighted, what should we do if we find that, as we conduct our literature review and criticize the approach taken by our organizations that we should be willing to give up working with them? Is it unethical to complete the practice experience for course credit and valuable experience if we really don’t agree with it? Second, do you think it is possible that you will create “disorder” in the target population of your practice organization? Lastly, do you agree in the value that Illich points out in the third argument he makes about getting feedback from the target population at your practice experience? If they don’t agree with your presence and actions in their community, what are you going to do? Do you feel ready? 

Here is a link to his whole article: http://www.southwestern.edu/live/files/1158

Disaster Relief and Corruption in Mexico.

There was Storm Manuel that hit Mexico’s Pacific coast, near Acapulco last month. Sources say that “Many of those deaths occurred in Acapulco's home state… and the mud completely blocked the entrance to a main hillside tunnel that lead into the city as waist-deep flood waters at the city's international airport prevented roughly 40,000 visitors from leaving. At least 58 people remain missing days after Manuel slammed the region.”

Although there was not much news coverage about this storm, it was a grave disaster to the vulnerable communities in the Pacific coast of Mexico, whom relied primarily from government disaster relief.

I did not experience the implication of this storm directly, but a friends’ relative did, and I was able to get a local perspective about how governmental/international distribution of water, food, and other emergency supplies sometimes do not reach the people and become lost or handed over by corruption dealings. The relative of my friend lived in Guerrero, Acapulco, and her homes were one of the many homes that were shattered by the impact of the storm. She claimed that she along with the family of 5 was forced to live in set up camps along with other victim families. The next day, when local Mexican authority had claimed that governmental aid supplies, and necessary supplies would come by in a few hours in trucks to be distributed to the families who lost everything, the families waited for that promised assistance. However, as soon as they herd the arrival of trucks loaded with supplies, the trucks simply kept going straight into the road, and never stopped. The supplies and the trucks never came, and they still do not know where those donation went. This story depict the immense corruption behind local aid distribution, in this case specifically target for disaster relief. I wonder to what extent were national actors involved in this type of doing, whether it was corruption by secondary hand, or already top-down dealings. The question holds, who is to be held accountable? Because the victims see only the governmetn as the ineffective provider.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/19/us-storm-manuel-idUSBRE98H1BQ20130919

The Gates Foundation: Goliath of Poverty Alleviation

In late July of 2013, I frantically wrote and rewrote sections of an influence study I was conducting with two of my colleagues at Digital Green. Stress ran high-not only was the deadline for our paper in a couple of days, but a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation report was due as well.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Gates Foundation, they are the largest transparently operated foundation in the world, focused on reducing poverty through four divisions: global development, global health, United States education policy, and policy and advocacy (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do).

Digital Green, my practice organization, is currently funded by a multimillion dollar grant from the Gates Foundation to run a massive randomized control trial (reaching 10,000 new villages and 1,000,000 new farmers) to obtain the causal impact of Digital Green on agricultural production and adoptions of proven, sustainable practices. Thus, they are held accountable by the Gates Foundation and must submit quarterly reports on progress.

I watched my colleagues rapidly put together a presentation for representatives of the foundation. There was a lot of talk about how the Gates Foundation only saw numbers, how this was taking time they did not have, to make the presentation aesthetically pleasing, to make sure they were kept happy, etc. I could not help but feel as if the Gates Foundation was akin to a rich relative that one did not necessarily like or agree with, but who commanded obedience, if only to stay on their will.

I don't have a problem with philanthropy, and I believe it's great that one of the world's wealthiest families has decided to give back. However, partnerships with Monsanto and Cargil, two of the world's largest agribusinesses whom are notorious for destroying livelihoods of small farmers everywhere, makes my faith waver. They have invested over 23 million dollars in Monsanto and make profits from the company (http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/07/the_gates_foundations_leverage.html). Again, there is nothing wrong with a foundation investing in private stocks-in fact, if it leads foundations and NGOs to become sustainable, it would be great. But when the investments are made in companies that keep people in poverty in the first place, it seems a tad hypocritical.

Further criticisms revolve around the Gates Foundation's obsessive need for numbers and increases in performance. Understandably, they want accountability for the large amounts of capital they invest in programs. However, this can produce one dimensional measures of progress, limited by decontextualized results, leading to well meaning, but perhaps uninformed policy.

The question, then, is whether or not "meaning well" is enough. There is no doubt that the Gates Foundation has made a substantial impact on global poverty. They have mobilized influential and wealthy figures around the world, required metrics of accountability to mainstream development work, and invested billions of dollars in programs working to alleviate poverty. However, they are a single foundation, yielding a massive amount of power in international and domestic development, with a single perspective-they're not at all a participatory organization. They often implement western metrics to evaluate programs, and have partnerships with some of the very organizations that are causing millions of people to struggle. The good may outweigh the bad, but when you're this powerful, that isn't enough.

I don't believe the Gates Foundation is evil, but perhaps misguided. An internal restructuring would go a long way to improve the long term impact it has the potential to have on global poverty. Though undeniably difficult, it would be irresponsible not to try.

The idea of Poverty just fills me with unsettling questions

One of Ananya Roy’s stories in lecture recently struck me, in which a boy asked her why in America there are homeless; rather, why do we not allow informal housing of the extremely impoverished in America. Of course, I realize there do exist "encampments" hidden underneath seams of the urban fabric, such as in the brush at the Albany Bulb or under bridges, however there are still so many trying to sleep on the concrete around my warm, secure home. Often in the Bay I have witnessed despicable verbal and physical violence toward bodies trying to rest on the streets. I wonder how, after being exposed to all the noxious elements of life on the streets throughout the day, these individuals also manage to survive sleeping on the cold concrete unable to lock out the dangerous, bad, or drunk people out that scare us all. I feel like the reason we don’t allow informal housing, is that cities feel compelled to be able to say the individuals without homes on their streets are just transients, and thus not reflective of the city, nor responsibility of the community. Do we not allow informal housing because we think the homeless are easier to regulate and police when they have no privacy? No running water, no mirror, no place to store their things, no toilet, no refrigerator or stove? Do we refuse to allocate space for makeshift dwellings, because it is easier to pretend like the problem doesn’t exist? Is it that we fear a built environment exposing the raw and inhumane conditions of Americas most poor would render the problem visible? I know many individuals who would build themselves a makeshift house in a dangerous slum on the outskirts of town and feel blessed to have walls surrounding them, as temporary, fragile, and illegal as they may be. I understand that slums pose many unimaginable dangers, but I wonder if they could possibly be worse than what we already have in America. How can we have so many people in this country of abundance wealth living in a culture of conspicuous consumption yet suffering from such extreme poverty that they cannot even afford a place to call home? My best guess is that we don’t allow anyone access to free land, due to the fear that it would be unfairly taken advantage of. Nonetheless I can’t help but wonder sometimes if "third world" slum establishments in fact might serve society better than how the poorest are forced to live in Berkeley.

http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/the-barrios-of-bogota/

Participation Expectations

I have been involved in service related to food accessibility for years, primarily interested in volunteering at soup kitchens and “feeding-the-homeless” events at churches. I always found colorful and very social characters at these events, and one of my favorite things to do was just hear about their day. One of the most common pieces I heard about were the treks around the city for the scheduled free dinners and soup kitchen openings. They would tell me about how day after day, they would follow the calendar and live off of whatever was being served. It was these kinds of stories that lead me to my practice experience organization.

I would wonder about other options that could take them out of this weekly cycle of waiting in line for the meal of the day on wheels or the next donation box of food that no one else wanted. How great would it be they could be given the opportunity to help themselves? To make their own decisions about what they eat and to be able to provide for their own? When I discovered City Slicker Farms and its mission, I was excited.  The community farms allowed people to receive the fresh produce that were so out of reach for the lower-income families and to really be a part of improving their own wellness. People would be more able to participate in the improvement of their lives and not depend so much on planned menus and the charity of others. It brought communities together, educated them on the importance of nutrition and the environment, and allowed people to take more control of their lives and health.

This past week, “participation” was the main topic, and when I tried to fit City Slickers into one of the degrees of participation listed by Duraiappah, it was difficult to fit the community farms program into just one category because there were so many components to the program itself. Community members can schedule a meeting with the organization to express concerns or comments about the activities, layout, and production of the farms. Community members who have worked the farms enough are given the opportunities to run them as if it were their own, but the organization still manages the harvest, weighing, and main food stand sales. Planning and evaluation boards comprised completely of community members are allowed a lot of power in the workings of the farms, and individuals can request to have a small farm installed in their own backyards to run on their own. As far as I could see, the organization offers a lot of opportunities for community participation and development, a chance to really take the community places.

What, however, is the true impact of a community participation model that seems effective given the issues  if the community is not participating? As a kind of volunteer orientation, I was sent to the various community farm sites in Oakland to see how the farms functioned, see the farming participants, and meet the coordinators. At each of the sites, there were many volunteers and each of the coordinators were either former volunteers or homeowners who decided to tear down their backyard fences and open their home to the community. One thing I realized though was that almost all of the volunteers I met were not from the target community of low-income, homeless, or struggling. Instead, I found a lot of student volunteers, middle class gardeners, and families on field trips. I was reminded of one of the challenges for effective participation that Duraiappah includes at the end of his piece: Lack of public interest in becoming involved. How much can an organization aid in community development with only a small percent of the community involved? The community is definitely empowered with the ability to make choices through the organization, but what if no one is interested in making those choices or acting on these opportunities?

It may have just been the time of day I went or the site I visited, but the concern about the community’s interest and participation in its development has definitely been planted.

The PE unicorn: now coming to you.

One hot afternoon in Wheeler auditorium, I was sitting in an introductory Public Health course, thinking that 6:00 PM could not come any faster. I was fanning myself, struggling to get my mind into gear for another 50 minutes, when Dr. Karen Sokal-Gutierrez pulled up her presentation for the lecture about tooth decay. I had the urge to double check my class syllabus, since this was Nutrition week for the course, but Berkeley time had all but waned, and honestly, I was just too lazy.

Dr. Karen launched into her personal story of working in El Salvador with the Peace Corp 20 something years ago, returning again rather recently to rotten smiles and a dominating presence of junk and processed foods. She unpacked her hypothesis, that junk food and the nutrition transition in various developing countries around the globe were all exacerbating malnutrition in children in a very digestible manner: junk food and sugary drinks lead to tooth decay, which prevents children from eating due to mouth pain and inability to chew, and also instills in children the preference towards junk foods over traditional, healthy foods.

Her project, a public health intervention, appeared successful and sustainable. Implemented in numerous countries, her project collaborated with local NGOs, which picked Community Health Workers to work on the project’s mission throughout the year. Once a year, the Berkeley team traveled to each country and implemented health camps and collected data, taught mothers and children proper tooth brushing methods and applied fluoride varnish.

She explained further that her research relied heavily on student involvement, which was open to undergraduates and before I knew it, I was working with Dr. Karen and the rest of the team and shortly after left to Mumbai and Kathmandu, Nepal. I think most Berkeley undergraduates can relate when I say that it felt like I found a unicorn. I absolutely couldn’t believe that I joined a project like this in the way I did.  What’s more is that Dr. Karen not only cares about the project, but also respects and is interested in her student volunteers and their experience with the project.  I know that everyone already has their PE chosen, but for anyone looking to become more involved in Public Health, nutrition, education or community-based interventions, this really is a great opportunity since most of the teams are in need of volunteers (especially students that speak the native language). 

As I was reading the Participatory Development article actually, I found myself nodding vigorously and making notes in the margins since I found that this Oral Health Project fit the bill almost completely for Participatory Action Research. The project works closely with not just with the NGOs and Community Health Workers under the NGOs. The beneficiary families are a crucial part of the project, since they help the Berkeley team assess the current climate surrounding oral health, oral hygiene and nutrition education in the local communities through focus groups and mother interviews. Additionally and most importantly, through these focus groups and interviews, they help the project identify the educational avenues it needs to focus on and address before returning for future health camps (i.e. create or improve educational materials, find additional teaching resources, develop specialized training for the health workers who will go and talk to mothers and children about oral hygiene and nutrition). 

The project operates in Kenya, Nepal, India (where I am focusing on for my PE), Vietnam, Ecuador and Peru.

Here are a few links for anyone to learn more about the project:

http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2012/06/15/healthy-teeth/ (Dr. Karen’s e-mail is posted at the bottom of this article.)

Dr. Karen’s TEDxBerkeley talk last Spring: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnsTvfNXPk4

As for the experience itself, I found myself overloaded with feelings, emotions and realizations that, quite frankly, came to blows with each other. On the one hand, I felt very lucky for the experience. But I was also frustrated that the conditions I saw were so many people’s reality. I was grateful for my own upbringing, but I was for some reason very guilty for it. I valued the sustainability of the India Smiles project and was pleased to see the community health workers and families excited about the health camps, but I also felt slightly hopeless amid all the colossal billboards with junk food ads and the dirty old candy wrappers crunching under my feet everywhere. And while I found myself constantly fueled by a burning ambition and newfound passion for the work I was doing, I felt dragged down when I discovered how little scholarship I possessed in regards to poverty action. So I embarked on the GPP minor in a non-traditional way, which is all the more enriching, and I’m looking forward to returning again for my official PE this winter break and to apply the new perspective I’ll gain throughout this semester. More to come on this, but for now, I wanted to extend this opportunity to you all since it has been transformative already for me.