Oakland: Cutting Adult Education in Local Schools

My practice experience this summer will be volunteering in Oakland, CA with Women’s Economic Agenda Project (WEAP). This is a non-profit organization dedicated to the education and training of women entering the workforce. These women are all living under the poverty line. Aside from this, WEAP advocates equal working rights and health benefits for women.

In a city like Oakland there are high levels of illiteracy rates, increased immigration rates and large communities of color affected by gangs violence. WEAP advocates that education is a vital tool to organize and avoid poverty and therefore does much campaigning in developing strategies to help women and youth continue their educational journey.

A recent article in The Oakland Tribute describes that local family literacy programs in Oakland may disappear due to recent cuts in state funding. The Oakland school board votes 5-1 to reduce programming for adult education. In essence, the position of individuals/ teachers that lead adult school courses will be eliminated or reduced. This decision brings up many issues because children who come from immigrant families have parents who no longer have the opportunity to learn from these free courses offered at their children’s schools. By not learning English as a second language, it is evident that families will not be able to acquire jobs in this fast growing economy. With that said, the poverty rates in the city of Oakland will continue to decline. Although many local organizations are coming together for this common cause, it is vital to create a movement before May 8^th of this year before budget plans are concrete.

The cutting of educational programs to adults will hurt the well-being of Oakland as illiteracy rates will continue to increase, hence raising the number of impoverished communities. This action directly correlates with the work that WEAP does. Promoting education and social justice issues are essential components of my organization and WEAP is most likely organizing against this local legislation. 

Works Cited:

Valdez, Serena.  The Oakland Tribute.  "Oakland: Family Literacy Programs May Disappear After School Board Votes to Eliminate Adult Education."  February 2013.

Post-War Recovery in Sri Lanka

Hello everyone!

The civil war in Sri Lanka ended in 2009, but the people of the north are still finding their way back to their normal lives. An article printed by groundviews.org brings many of the issues that the internally displaced people (IDP) are still facing to this day, and how the government is failing to do its part to help them. Many people not only lost loved ones, but also their homes and livelihoods. Many people in the northern region of Sri Lanka lack of proper sanitation, medical care, and clean water. They also bring up issues that I had never even though of, like transportation and day care centers. Without proper transport facilities, children are not able to get to schools and adults are having trouble getting to their jobs. The article suggests introducing rickshaws into the villages of the north. Rickshaws are a common form of transportation in the larger cities of Sri Lanka, and are a quick, cheap method of transportation. Not only would this alleviate the transportation issue, but it would also create jobs for people as drivers of the rickshaws. However right now, the government has kept its focus on the military and the incoming investigation by the UN into the country’s military tactics during the war and has put these displaced peoples aside. For this reason, much of the rehabilitation efforts have been taken on by various NGOs.

The organization I will be working with this summer, Sarvodaya, has been focusing its efforts on helping the displaced northerners in recent years. They run projects bringing food, fresh water, sanitation, health services, and educational activities to nine different IDP sites in the north. I will be primarily working with the community health unit, which provides check-ups for the villagers, as well as health education programs specifically targeted at women and adolescents. Access to good medical care was an issue for the villagers even before the war started, and now that it has torn through the region, it is even worse. Doctors are very hard to come by, and medication is not readily available to most people. Sarvodaya works with the bigger hospitals in Sri Lanka to bring doctors and medical kits to the north, where it is most needed.

http://groundviews.org/2012/09/22/rehabilitation-of-sri-lankan-war-victims-why-ngos-should-co-ordinate/ 

Stockton, CA in political stalemate

This summer, I will be working with Community Partnerships for Families of San Joaquin in Stockton, CA. CPFSJ is a multi-pronged organization, tackling issues in finances, health, and education as a way of reaching their mission of ending inter-generational poverty. Much of the work they do is through partnerships they have established with various private and public institutions in Stockton; for example, the resource center partners with St. Joseph's Hospital (a private hospital in Stockton) to provide care for the low-income families that are a part of CPFSJ. They also focus on strengtening communities: the families that become financially self-sufficient, after the assistance provided by CPFSJ, act as ambassadors for new families entering the program. Most of the population CPFSJ targets are low-income, mostly immigrant families in various parts of Stockton.

I wanted to use this space to give a brief layout of the political stalemate that has taken over Stockton in the past decade or so, from an outside perspective and an inside perspective (I am a native of Stockton). In 2004, Measures Q and X were passed, stating that Stockton's Urban Growth Boundary be extended to include Southeast Stockton, ushering in a new momentum of economic opportunity via commercial and retail stores, new schools and recreation centers (http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/ca/sj/meas/X/). The progress has been slow and since 2004, very little has been done to motivate the Southeast community. Southeast Stockton houses many of Stockton's troubled communities (the biggest one being Sierra Vista Projects), breeding grounds for at-risk youth and rampant with gang violence. In the streets and casual conversation, we call the Sierra Vista Projects simply SV or the Vista. SV residents are predominantly low-income, African-American or Hispanic. Gang culture in the SV is a way of life - the public and private life of friendship and family conflate and SV residents are expected to live a life of decency and fearlessness.

A few years after Measures Q and X were passed, housing developments in Stockton sky-rocketed. From my 16 year old mind, I remember watching Stockton expand dramatically North and Northeast. I remember driving to the post-office on West Lane and what used to be an empty field was now cluttered with houses that have a small patch of grass as the front yard. Similarly, the field that used to engulf the always-busy WalMart was now paved clean with cement and houses were beautifully designed to compliment each other. What used to be North Stockton (where I lived) was now North-Central Stockton. North Stockton was where A.G. Spanos built his kingdom. KB Homes dominated the housing development industry off Highway 99, by Morada. Not long after, plazas of Targets, Lowes, restaurants, and grocery stores appeared around these areas.

In 2007, Stockton was hit tremendously hard by the foreclosure crisis (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10/stockton-california-is-fo_n_417704.html). Most of the people in my neighborhood rented their homes, and I remember all of us needing to move away because our land-lords couldn't afford to keep their/our homes. For the Sierra Vista, this meant that much of the public housing that populated the area had plans for take over. Along with Measures Q and X, it felt like life in Stockton was officially over as we knew it. But it's been a few years and much seems to be going the same. In 2012, Stockton declared bankruptcy and the unemployment rate is currently about 17-18%. For years, we have seen candidates move in and in (they never move out) of office, never really making effective change on the ground. But in the last election, Michael Tubbs, "a true son of Stockton" was voted in (http://mdtubbs.com/). We went to high school together and the Michael I knew was so completely different than the Michael he is now. Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Michael was elected a city councilman and the stagnant motivation for improvement that has burdened Stockton for decades feels like its now starting to lift.

Urban Farms in Richmond

For my practice experience, I’ll be working with Self-Sustaining Communities in Richmond, CA this summer.  Aiming to establish a secure and healthy city, Self-Sustaining Communities has helped create and maintain three urban farms in Richmond and has distributed over 9,400 fruit, nut, and olive trees to residents.  With the vision of using urban farms as a “focal point to address food, housing, mental health, and other needed survival skills,” (http://www.self-sustainingcommunities.org/our-work.html) Self-Sustaining Communities continues these efforts to address food insecurity, poverty, and environmental injustice.

I wanted to use this first blog post to illustrate the need for this in Richmond.  Below are links to two pages at Richmond Confidential, a news service produced by the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.  The first is a map that includes the location of a number of environmentally hazardous sites throughout Richmond (there’s a lot!), and the second is a short article with a video about food insecurity in North Richmond and the farm project that some local residents undertook as a solution. (not my PE org). As you can see, urban farms can be a means to address more than just food insecurity.

http://richmondconfidential.org/2012/12/07/richmonds-toxics/

http://richmondconfidential.org/2011/05/27/planting-a-healthier-north-richmond/

Richmond, a city that is mostly inhabited by low-income people of color, is not a special or isolated case.  Study after study has shown that pollution in the United States is typically placed in low income communities and communities of color.  Overburdening these communities with environmental negatives, as well as their lack of access to environmental goods (like parks), is what is known as environmental racism or environmental injustice.  Laura Pulido’s article “Rethinking Environmental Racism: White Privilege and Urban Development in Southern California” (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/0004-5608.00182) is a great article that explains the role that structural and spatial racism plays in the creation of the social realities we see experienced in places like Richmond.  Specifically, Pulido discusses white privilege and the historical and current processes that have enabled whites to distance themselves from both non-whites and pollution.  These are themes that we touched on in GPP 115 as well when we went over topics like Hurricane Katrina and poverty in the United States.

I think the suburbanization of super markets, one factor in the creation of food deserts, is related to the processes Pulido talks about in her article.  As mentioned in the Richmond Confidential video, people in the Richmond area do not have adequate access to fresh and healthy food choices, which essentially makes Richmond (or parts of it) a food desert.  Urban farms address food insecurity and can be a part of the movement for environmental and social justice.

Also, since we are all interested in poverty alleviation, I wanted to let everyone know about the Raise the Wage: East Bay campaign I’m working on.  This is a campaign to raise the minimum wage for workers in the East Bay to $10/hour with a COLA so that it continues to rise with the cost of living.  Currently, the minimum wage for local workers is $8/hour with no COLA.  Changing the distribution of income from companies to minimum wage workers in this way would also be a step in the right direction to tackle environmental injustice.  You can support the campaign by liking the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/RaiseTheWageEB), but if you want to do more you can contact me at: bsnyder@berkeley.edu

Brandon

"Three years on: the aftermath of Chile's devastating earthquake"

Hello Everyone,

For my practice experience I will be venturing to Chile this summer to work with an organization called TECHO. TECHO works to build sustainable housing facilities around Latin America. In regards to working in Chile, what sparked my interest about this project had to do with my fascination with the disaster relief interventions we learned about in GPP 115 in relation to Haiti and New Orleans. A major earthquake hit Chile in 2010 and devastated many lives requiring massive rebuilding of housing especially in rural areas. My organization continues to do work in this sector.

The current event article I found was directly in line with my interests. "Three years on: the aftermath of Chile's devastating earthquake" describes what is going on in Chile now in relation to the still prevalent disaster relief efforts. The earthquake in 2010 was one of the worst natural disasters in Chile's history killing 525 people and causing billions of dollars in damage. With such a disaster we can only imagine that there is still much work being done to rebuild houses and establish new infrastructure in rural areas of Chile by the government as well as other organizations.

My personal interest in disaster relief has to do with the psychological effects that are caused by such devastating events. While I will be working with other University youth volunteers to establish a project that will implement sustainable improvements to communities, I will also be working directly with individuals whose lives were impacted three years ago by this natural disaster. Siekierska, in this article, goes into the details of living in memory of the disaster and post-traumatic stress that is experienced by so many members of the communities who were forced into the tight quarters of temporary housing for extended periods of time. While it has been three years since the disaster these problems are still very prevalent in Chile. I look forward to discovering more about what the daily life is like for those who suffer from post-truamatic stress as I help to improve their housing.

http://www.santiagotimes.cl/opinion/special-reports/25790-three-years-on-the-aftermath-of-chiles-devastating-earthquake

“We opened with the vision of going out of business one day” 27 years later and…

Hello everyone,

Today I officially started my practice experience at the Alameda County Community Food Bank. I went through an orientation for the second time and even though I heard the same exact things it still amazes me. Like last time the volunteer coordinator starts off with few data such as: the food bank serve more than 49,000 people a week including 21,000 children and they serve 1 out of 6 people in the county. However the most important part was when she said “We opened with the vision of going out of business one day”. I have read the statement many times before, for it’s the foundation which the food bank started on. What struck me this time is the fact that the food bank has been around for 27 years. The demand for it increased and according to the data it keeps on increasing.

Here there are two issues that popped into my mind:  

First, responsibility and accountability; how much is too much? The food bank is working to fill in the gap where the state has failed i.e. Cal Fresh –and other programs. According to one of the staff working at the food bank the food stamps program has been cut into half –actually three times if you count with the inflation- since the mid 80’s. If those programs where sufficient people wouldn’t have been looking somewhere else for food. The food bank relies heavily on volunteering –people from the Alameda county community. The staff were very appreciative and glad for the support, but I was thinking how much of it is the community’s responsibility and how much is it the state?

Second, how long will it actually take for the food bank to go out business? According to an article by the NBC Bay Area, the network of distributors – which originally get their supply from the Alameda food bank- are facing “barriers” to expand their capacities. At one point they will need to reduce the number of food assistance recipients. Not only there is a growing need but also a shortage that is not being met by the programs. It's an issue that's expanding year after year.

How long will this continue? Whose responsibility is it?...

Questions that keep bouncing in my head. How much will this practice experience feed my curiosity, I just have to stick around and see.

one quote ,I wanted to share with you, that was echoing during the orientation“I must do something… [better] than [saying] something must be done…” When there is no solution you better make one yourself.

 

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Food-Bank-Study-Reveals-Growing-Need-for-Community-Support-192356441.html

Health Care in Viet Nam

After the Viet Nam War, the Communist Party of Vietnam adopted a set of reforms aimed at establishing a market-centered socialist economy in order to achieve rapid growth and speed industrialization. The movement, entitled "doi moi," changed the role of the state dramatically, from one where the state was greatly responsible for education, health care and other social safety nets in the public sector to that of individual household responsibility and privatization. Statistically, while the country has enjoyed benefits such as substantial economic growth (from 1990's $146 GDP per capita to $1,155 in 2010) and poverty reduction (from 58% in 1993 to 12.3% in 2010), the spread has been unstable and unequal. While the urban poor have decreased, increased income and regional disparities, as well as access to social services for disadvantaged household have been a result of the doi moi policies. In terms of impact on health care, basic health care was once formally fere to all prior to doi moi, but now that health is seen as a good of the market, health care cost and access for the poor have been spotty and unregulated. Patients have largely shifted towards self-prescription and reliance on foreign support. Access to doctors in rural communities is poor and many children lack screening and preventive care to maintain their health.

This summer, I will be doing my practice experience in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, with the Project Viet Nam Foundation (PVNF), an organization based in Fountain Valley, CA. PVNF works in the rural and needy provinces to provide medical care, medical training, and patient awareness campaigns/policy work to advocate for better children's health, mental care, preventive care, and health education. Currently, Viet Nam is pushing for health care reform in the areas of mental health, disability rights, health insurance and access, and children's preventive care. Besides the medical clinic work that is delivered to rural villages and medical training offered to medical professionals in the area, the most important work PVNF does is collaboration with other NGOs and educational institutions to address the needs of the most disadvantaged communities. The link below is an article on the health system in Viet Nam and the policy debates that are occurring in the country: http://www.globalhealthcheck.org/?p=423 (originally an orticle from the Oxford Analytica)

Stanford Social Innovation articles.

Greetings!

I found an interesting article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that discusses some initiatives in the United States that share the same spirit as microfinance in that they aim to empower people instead of simply helping them. In addition to financial assassinate via loans and grants, importance is also given to teach benefactors how to use these funds and in general 'life-coaching'. This includes pro-bono consulting, vocational training and creating jobs. 

Here is the link to this article. 

Another article uses case studies from 12 successful non-profit organiation to debunk 6 myths about non-profits as well as 6 non-profit practices that have proven successful. The key points of the article are:

1. Advocating is often as necessary as serving since orgs can have a larger impact through policy. 

2. NGOs need to be financially independent.

3. Build a community round the projet/cause which will inspire others to work towards your cause.

4. collaborate with fellow non-profits.

5. Adapt to changing environments and needs of the community

6. Have a more decentralized model wherein all stakeholders, right from the benefactors to the management has a say. 

Here is the link to this article.

Human Rights Watch and Child Labor

Hey everyone!

For my practice experience, I will be working with an organization in Kanchipuram, India called the Rural Institute for Development Education (RIDE). RIDE’s main objective is to eliminate child labor in the villages and provide bridge education programs for former child laborers. The organization asserts that child labor violates the right to personal integrity and the right to an education.

While conducting research, it has become apparent that a subsection of opponents to child labor assumes a strictly rights-based approach and ignores the protectionist claims of the other sections. The Children’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch subscribes to this belief, arguing that child domestic labor in particular is “hidden slavery. Therefore, it’s unacceptable. It is the responsibility of government to restore freedom, dignity, and childhood to keep the promises they have been making.” On February 25, HRW distributed a letter to global ministers of labor, urging national government to adopt an ILO Convention from June 2011. This new ILO Convention—only ratified by a few nations thus far—would help eliminate child domestic labor.

Though the sentiment behind the letter may be genuine and apolitical, I wonder about the effectiveness of such an approach. Does sending a letter to a government minister influence politics in many developing nations? Is there any guarantee the Minister will see and heed the recommendations in the letter? Even if the government does follow the proposals of HRW and ratifies the convention, there is no guarantee such action will have an effect on the child workers. Many of the workers are employed in the informal sector, a portion of society over which the government cannot exercise power. In such cases, what good does having a law better the lives of the affected communities? These questions continue to arise as I conduct my research and raise concerns over whether there is a feasible solution to the problem of child labor.

HRW Press Release:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/25/protect-15-million-child-domestic-workers

HRW Letter to Ministers: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/related_material/2013_Global_NGO_Letter_to_Ministers_of_Labor.pdf

Maternal Health in the Bay Area

Hello hello :o)


For my practice experience, I will be working with Saving Mothers to implement a lifestyle modification program for low-income pregnant women in the Bay Area. Saving Mothers is an organization that has been fighting maternal and child mortality in third world countries with the use of sanitary birthing kits and training programs. This organization wanted to bring more awareness of maternal health locally and began a successful lifestyle modification program in New York. This program addresses the adverse effects of obesity on pregnancy and promotes healthy nutrition and exercise habits to ensure safer deliveries.

While researching about prenatal care in the Bay Area, I came across an article about a public health nurse, Sandra Tramiel, who was on a mission to save Alameda County's African American infants from death before their first birthdays. Though California's infant mortality rate ranks fourth best in the nation, California's black infants die twice as frequently as white infants, and their death rate is comparable to that of Sri Lanka and Botswana. Nurse Tramiel has been addressing this racial disparity by providing in home care for these mothers. She distributes educational pamphlets and creates a community of mothers who can rely one one another for emotional support.

I had recently read a study that observed how comprehensive prenatal care compared to standard prenatal care on birth weight, a major indicator of infant mortality. Comprehensive care provides individual meetings at the comfort of the mothers' homes and has follow up calls to encourage mothers to participate if they miss an appointment. It was interesting to see this in practice through the work of Nurse Tramiel.



http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Infant-mortality-addressed-by-outreach-4154865.php#page-1

McLaughlin, Joseph. “Randomized Trial of Comprehensive Prenatal Care for Low-Income Women: Effects on Infant Birth Weight.” Pediatrics. 89.1 (1992): 128-132.