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-Ron Lapitan, Former Community Outreach Coordinator

“How’s your day so far?” I asked Javier, the student who had been sent to the front office to take me to his ESL government class at Annandale High School.

“My government grade is not so good. My brain has a hard time with history,” he answered honestly. “Also, class is the only time I have to study. When school ends, I run to the bus and go to work,” he said. It is this way for many ESL students, immigrants and refugees who work to support themselves. Javier came to Virginia without his parents, so he lives in a basement and pays rent.

“I’m so sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s good,” he answered. “In my country, we say that God only gives you what you can support. If you don’t support it, than you don’t grow up.” I complimented his attitude. “I always try to stay positive. I have to represent my mother’s values, since she doesn’t live here with me,” he said.

ESL students make up the leaders of many of our high school teams for the Health as Right Program. As in all first meetings with a new team, I asked the youth what they would change in the community if they had the power.

“I would teach a class on U.S. law. Many people who come to this country don’t know the laws. So when they get in trouble, they don’t know what their rights are,” said Abdul-Rahman.
“I would start an English academy. It could be in the evening, when people have time to come,” said Jobaer.
“I think there should be free medical services. I have medicaid, but many of my friends can’t get treatment because they don’t have- what’s the word… insurance,” said Roxana. She thinks like our doctors, who created the Center for Health and Human Rights program precisely for this purpose.

We picked a service project that they could do before the end of this year. They chose Amparo’s idea: to film an educational video about the health impacts of smoking. They have a research team, a script-writing team, and an acting team, each of whom has a deadline to pass on their material to the next team so that the finished production can be done by next Friday. Then they will send it to an elementary school.

“Put me as the director,” said Jobaer.
“We’re going to need good looking people for the acting team,” said Paul, one of the teachers.
“Mr. Ron, what team will you join?” asked Jairon.
“I’ll support all the teams. In other words, I’m the boss,” I answered with a smile. We laughed.

The research team took out computers and split into their own table right away to start finding the health impacts of smoking for the last 30 minutes of class. Two of the students, Jobaer and Roxanna, have also enthusiastically volunteered to be our student leaders to launch the Health as Right Club at Annandale for next year.

“There’s a radical – and wonderful – new idea here… that all children could and should be inventors of their own theories, critics of other people’s ideas, analyzers of evidence, and makers of their own personal marks on the world.”

-Deborah Meier

#healthasright #cultureofhealth #youthteams