Kavian Milani

-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)

-Ron Lapitan, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

Our Health as Right Clubs have different styles for addressing our community’s public pressing public health problems. Our Fairfax HS Club picked one issue to focus all their efforts on: empowering youth in the foster system to finish high school. Our Annandale HS Club picks small projects to do one at a time. Currently, it is researching, writing, and shooting an educational video about the health impacts of smoking, which they will send to an elementary school. Other teams with a great amount of zeal and capacity, like the Mt. Vernon HS Club, create several service projects and divide into teams to work on all of them at once.

The Mt. Vernon students start each meeting with progress updates from each of the teams.
“We found cards we could buy for the teachers and janitors,” said Catherine from the team working to make school staff feel more appreciated.
“I got the psychiatrist to come speak to us next week,” said Elizabeth from the team working to raise awareness of the school’s counselors.
“We got the administrator we were talking with to meet with us today to talk about our condoms project,” said Esther.

Then that administrator appeared in her suit and sat down.
“I would like to hear your agenda,” she said.
“We wanted to ask about the possibilities of putting condoms in the bathrooms or in the nurse’s office, to reduce teen pregnancy,” started Esther.

The admin nodded thoughtfully. “What is it you have all seen that made you start this project?” she asked. There was a pause.
“Well, a lot of my friends use a lot of condoms,” chimed in Elizabeth. The group laughed. “But when they run out, they just decide not to use them. If there were free condoms, it might be easier for people to make smarter choices,” she said.
“Also, I know a lot of people have strict parents who won’t even talk about condoms. If you can’t even talk to your parents about something, you end up making really stupid decisions. This would help make better decisions easier,” added Esther, as the group gained courage.
“The point isn’t to encourage more people to have sex. It is to communicate that students should be making healthier decisions, and having the condoms their educates people about better ways to do things,” said Anthony.

The admin’s face lit up, seeing their drive. She explained the position of Fairfax County Public Schools not to provide condoms, to stay out of the heated debates of parents who believe students shouldn’t even be exposed to such things. She turned to Esther and Miranda, the team for this project who invited her to come. “If you’d like, I would be happy to meet with you again to show you the County’s actual policies. Then you could use that to find another way to do this project, such as educating students about not having sex in the first place,” she said. “I always believe in student movements. Change is much more influential when it comes from you, versus grown-ups like me,” she said.

“I’m interested. What are the other projects you are working on?” she asked.
“We noticed that teachers and janitors seem really under-appreciated. So we’re going to do fundraisers to get gifts to give to them to say thank you,” said Catherine.
“We want to use that storage room that never gets used to make a new food pantry. We would stock it, then manage it for students who need it,” said Anna.
“We also want to put basketball hoops around the trashcans,” said Esther with a smile. “There’s always a lot of trash outside the trashcans, because all the boys try to be LeBron James and throw their trash around. If we put hoops around the cans, it would encourage people to actually make it in the trash so the school can be clean,” she described. We laughed.

The administrator was uplifted, hearing such passionate young people express their ideas about how to make their school a better and healthier place. “If you will do me this honor, keep me up to date on your efforts,” she said. With that she left.

There was a reflective silence at the table.
“That was awesome,” said Esther.
“We should get more adults involved in what we do. Not to do things for us, but because we don’t know yet how to do things and it’s enlightening to hear what they know,” said Anthony in his wise way. It is a beautiful moment to witness when youth experience for the first time their power to create dialogue about the kind community they want to live in.

Before we parted, the leaders discussed yet another project they are working on: to talk with the school’s athletic directors and medical staff about making physicals for sports more affordable for students who can’t afford it.
“We [our medical office] do that,” I said with a smile. “Free physicals for students to get enrolled in sports,” I said. Their faces lit up, and together we reworked their project to raise awareness about our services for marginalized students wanting to do sports.

One of our CHHR staff said recently that she believed our youth teams could one day save lives that possibly no doctor could save. The vital work of doctors is to heal injuries and sicknesses once they become visible problems. But for those who dream of a healthier world, the vital work is to create a new culture that supports health and human rights.
“We’ve never done this much before,” said Elizabeth of herself and her friends, surprised by the capacity they had discovered in themselves as we walked out of the library together. Every youth has the power to become a champion of that culture. The task is simply to show them they have it. And then you’ve ignited a social movement.

“The sun shines not on us, but in us.”

-John Muir, environmentalist

(Image: Mt. Vernon leaders wearing CHHR’s “Health as Right” bracelets)

#healthasright #cultureofhealth #youthteams