Blog

-Ron Lapitan, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

When I was hired as coordinator for the Center for Health and Human Rights’ high school program, my boss told me to lie awake at night and dream of things I would change or solve about the community then I’d be qualified to help raise up a network of local youth with the same sleeplessness.

Our program focuses on high schools, but we have one club in George Mason University. University students can take on projects of higher complexity because they are taking up their part in the ways that society works related to their professions, either perpetuating them or changing them.

The conversations I’ve been having recently for work with other people and groups whose jobs are to be sleepless have planted some ideas for projects our university leaders could pursue next year.

One problem in our community is the struggle of refugees who cannot effectively express their medical issues in English to get effective health treatment. Consider a case where a Spanish-speaking refugee told his doctor that he was “intoxicado,” who then put him in detox. That patient ended up having a brain aneurism rupture, leaving him completely paralyzed because he didn’t get the treatment he actually needed. “Intoxicado” means “nauseous,” not intoxicated.

One solution is for medical providers to work with interpreters, but many resist because it goes against how they were trained. Certain orgs, such as Volatia Language Network whom I shook hands with the other day, are starting to work with universities in VA to integrate the use of interpreters into the training of med students. “We don’t have a program at GMU yet. We just need a connection,” said Baraka, the Volatia rep. That is project idea 1: to work with the GMU med department to integrate the importance of using interpreters into their curriculum.

Another problem particular to Fairfax is that we have about 50 low income children in the community who qualify for preschool, but there are simply no slots available for them. The preschools set aside for students of their socioeconomic level are simply full. “That’s a lot of kids who are going to be behind once they start school,” said Susan, a community builder amongst Fairfax NGOs during another meeting. “Perhaps a space could be made available at GMU, and then early education students could run a class,” she suggested. That’s project idea 2.

A little constructive sleeplessness, combined with a group of friends who share your insomnia, equal the power to change something you wish would be different, rather than accepting it. The purpose of programs like ours is simply to create that culture of sleeplessness.

“Legend says, when you can’t sleep at night, it’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.”

-Anonymous

(Image: a conference for orgs serving refugees, one of the spaces CHHR helped organize.)

#healthasright #youthteams

-Ron Lapitan, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

I join our Health as Right team at Mt. Vernon High School every Wednesday, who for their special passion decided to continue having a weekly meeting through Skype over the summer to discuss service projects for the coming year. Today, we discussed two of their ideas: finding ways to make cheap solar panels and starting a food truck to drive to the homes of students experiencing food insecurity.

“Do we know anyone knowledgeable about solar panels?” I asked, sitting outside my house with my headphones in.
“We should talk to Catherine (another of the club members). She is really interested in technology,” said Elizabeth, the student leader who takes initiative to rally the group to the weekly meeting.
“I just remembered. The husband of my boss at an old job has a solar panel installation company. I could ask him if he could lend his expertise to doing a solar panel workshop,” I added.
“Are you thinking we could learn how to build solar panels from scratch?” asked Anthony.
“There are communities around the world that host workshops for ordinary people to learn how to assemble household solar panels from certain parts, then you can take them home and plug in your iPhone. We could host a workshop like that at the school,” I said.
“Catherine could learn from that person,” commented Elizabeth.
“Then I’ll contact him. And if he says he can, we can put a date on this workshop and plan logistics,” I said.

Elizabeth has organized a meeting for her and me to sit down with the school’s social worker in August, who said the food truck idea could help certain students she knows.
“Are we going to have a taco truck? And who would drive it around?” asked Anthony.
“I don’t know how many of us have our licenses,” I laughed. “You are always free to ask me to drive it, and I could use my car.”
“At another school, a lunch lady once showed me that they threw out all the food that they didn’t sell, like the apples and fruits. She took a bag full of burgers and put it in the dumpster. It is probably the same at our school,” commented Anthony.
“That could be one way to supply our food truck. Ask the school cafeteria if we could use the food they would throw anyway,” I said. “There are also restaurants that are happy to give away the food they don’t sell at the end of the day because they would throw it. We could ask them if we could use their food.”
“We could ask local businesses to sponsor the truck,” said Elizabeth. “I can call the Dollar Tree to ask when their manager is available. Then we can call them together during our next meeting to talk about our project.”

“Wow, that was a productive meeting,” said Anthony at our designated end. “We went all the way from baby steps to having a taco truck.” We laughed.
“We all deserve a gold star,” joked Elizabeth.
“And pats on the back,” I added with a smile. “Remember, next Thursday is our first summer service project: our hike slash trash pickup of a nature trail,” I said. With that we parted so Elizabeth could run to her weekly leadership course.

How wonderful, what a group of youth can accomplish when they make time each week to simply get together and imagine. It is the kind of satisfaction that makes you wonder why we don’t do these things as a culture all the time. Not only could it benefit others, it’s also a lot of fun. We’ll make it a part of the culture we are creating together.

“Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.”

-Einstein

#healthasright #youthteams

(Image: Elizabeth’s weekly email reminder)