Post by dockworker on May 23, 2009 7:13:10 GMT -5
The Jersey City Independent News
The Jersey City Independent
www.jerseycityindependent.com
Learning from Experience: St. Peter’s Students Engage & Organize the Community
Posted By Sarah Fishtein
May 22, 2009
Seminar student Daniel Rafael-Rios and professor Donal Malone
No longer chained to the tradition of textbooks and research papers, students in professor Donal Malone’s sociology senior seminar class at St. Peter’s College encountered a new task this spring. The graduating students helped organize a citywide forum on urban social issues, uniting community organizers, nonprofit leaders, public policy graduate students and community members in a dynamic atmosphere for discussion and change.
Called “Making Jersey City Work for Everyone,” the forum took place on Saturday, May 2 in the college’s spacious McIntyre lounge. The program was co-sponsored by the school’s Public Policy program and Garden State Alliance for a New Economy (GANE), a coalition of labor unions and community-based organizations that focuses on economic development. It was billed as a forum to discuss crime, affordable housing, local jobs, youth services and tax abatements.
Reaching Out
For Malone’s class of nine, the first step was identifying the salient issues. Drawing on classwork from the seminar and their backgrounds in sociology, they set out in the community to talk to Jersey City residents about their biggest concerns. Organizers from GANE provided support and guidance during this period.
Attending community meetings with groups like the Communipaw Avenue Block Association was just the beginning for these students. “We developed fliers, we made phone calls to politicians, we walked the streets talking with people, we sent out letters,” seminar student Daniel Rafael-Rios says. “I believe we utilized every form of outreach.”
For Rafael-Rios, learning how to conduct this kind of outreach was no easy task. It was time-consuming and even confusing at times, he admits.
“I had never done this sort of thing in my life, so I was constantly in contact with the professor asking him which steps to take,” he says.
Being forced to operate outside of his comfort zone was both intentional and necessary as a part of the learning process. In fact, Malone gave students advanced warning about the challenges they were to face in his class.
“This course has been organized to create opportunities for students and faculty to collaborate with each other and with local community organizations,” his syllabus for the seminar reads. “This [format] requires cooperation, respect and mutual responsibility. It also requires a lot of thought, investigation and analysis.”
Malone emphasized the importance of students engaging with the community at large. His intention was twofold: to provide a real-world application of “various aspects of sociology that students have studied for the last four years,” and to create a sendoff into post-college life that imparts valuable career skills.
“Connecting with the community is important to us as a college,” Malone added.
Students Kick Off the Forum
Although the room was barely half full at the seminar’s 10 am start time, latecomers continued to trickle in and by 11 am, the number of people had doubled. Attendees were roughly split between those affiliated with the event and community members. In all, 84 people sat in on the forum.
Maybe it was the mild, sunny weather or the courtyard’s plentiful wisteria vines that greeted attendees as they entered, but the attitude of the morning was decidedly cooperative — devoid of any combative scuffles.
During the first 45 minutes of the program, senior seminar and public policy students alternated at the podium with brief, statistic-heavy presentations about Jersey City issues they had researched.
Not surprising was the revelation that Jersey City zip code 07306 around Journal Square makes up the most culturally diverse area in the state. More startling were the citywide economic statistics. High unemployment rates, double-digit percentages of families living below the poverty line, and worrisome stats on education, dropout rates, affordable housing options and crime rates led to one conclusion: that Jersey City is failing to provide adequate opportunities for all of its residents.
“We have to ask ourselves, is this how we want to end up?” seminar students Jenae Johnson and Angelique Rios asked.
Following the student presentations, representatives from local nonprofits addressed the issues students had introduced.
Labor
Wayne Richardson, president of Laborers Local 55 and a community organizer with GANE, had news of new opportunities for local workers.
Richardson described a groundbreaking six-week training program piloted in Newark in which workers learned to update their skills with energy-efficient materials and practices. Upon completion of the training, the workers were sworn into Local 55.
Part of a so-called “green collar” movement, the workers’ training program is funded by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, with materials provided by the National Laborer’s Union.
The program is aimed at helping workers remain marketable in a tough economy, as well as introducing green building practices on a more widespread scale. Met with positive reviews from workers and city officials, the program is expected to continue and expand its capacity.
Richardson talked about the need for more job opportunities, rather than government subsidies like medical care and food stamps. It’s difficult to be part of the community, he said, “if you can’t stand on your own two feet.”
Jersey City truck driver Kenel Hyppolite, who was joined by Trina Scordo, a senior researcher with Change to Win Labor Federation, echoed the importance of self-sufficiency.
Hyppolite estimates his annual income is about $20,000 after expenses. As an independent trucker, he has to pay for the lease on his truck and all maintenance on it. His employer, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, classifies 73 percent of the truckers who work regularly in the port as independent contractors, not employees.
Independent truckers like Hyppolite also struggle with health insurance costs. Hyppolite is currently going without — a costly proposition for someone constantly exposed to vehicle exhaust. With hypertension and heart problems, Hyppolite is having difficulty working these days — and when he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. Since he lacks insurance, he heads to the emergency room when his health acts up. The bills are accumulating, he said, and he is unable to get any credit.
He and Scordo say the answer is simple. They are calling on the Port Authority to hire its drivers as full-time, salaried employees — fair wages, benefits and all.
“They call us independent contractors, but we are like employees,” Hyppolite said. “They tell us what to do and if we don’t do it, we don’t have a job.”
Education
When seminar students Rachel Goodstein and Doris Mena told the audience that Jersey City lacks quality after-school programs, they found immediate support, as a ripple of agreement spread through the room, signaling a hot button topic for frustrated parents.
Having researched the availability of after-school programs by prowling the community and talking to parents, Goodstein and Mena concluded that kids in Jersey City simply do not have enough options after school.
They called for more funding, noting that although some programs offer scholarships, cost is often a barrier. But they also noticed a flaw that seemed easily fixable.
“There isn’t one single place that lists all the after-school programs,” Goodstein said, suggesting that better outreach to parents might get kids connected to services more efficiently. “Maybe the Board of Education can publish a list on its website: program, cost and place,” Mena added.
The ideal program, they said, would include a mix of academic and recreational activities. “There should be homework help, but also activities to pull the kids in,” Goodstein said.
Making it Work
All this talk was well and good, but many may have been left wondering just how an ordinary resident can get involved with these or other issues.
Orville Morales of the Citizens’ Campaign recommended that people go right to the source — elected officials — with ideas.
“Don’t just reiterate problems,” he said. “Come with a solution.”
Speaking of elected officials, one attendee wondered why none were present.
“Were any politicians invited to this forum?” Edwin Rafael-Rios asked. “Where are they?”
The answer was apparent as attendees looked silently around the room. Student organizers said they invited officials but were unable to get any confirmations.
Rafael-Rios, the father of seminar student Daniel, cautioned against a certain type of forum that is “all rah-rah. It’s a great idea, but people leave and nothing happens.”
A former federal agent from Queens, he said the key to the equation is involving city officials, including local police.
When citizens leave decisions up to the politicians, he said, “We forfeit our rights.”
Despite this missing link, attendees said they appreciated the forum. Jersey City native Curlie Chapple enthusiastically said the event was “absolutely helpful.”
Although Chapple works for Morgan Stanley and said she considers herself fortunate, as a single, middle-income parent she still faces challenges paying rent. She estimated that at least 45 percent of her income goes to rent.
She said she was pleased to learn more about affordable housing at the forum.
Opening Students’ Eyes
Goodstein says participating in the project “opened my eyes to something I was originally intimidated by.”
Rafael-Rios takes it a step further.
“People shouldn’t be forced to watch as their communities get gentrified and their heritage gets torn down by developers,” he says.
Both students agree that working closely with the community has helped them begin to make sense of some complex issues.
For them, community work appears to be contagious. Once they were exposed to local organizing, the students said, they felt compelled to continue with it. They are both considering community-oriented career options.
Rafael-Rios, who also acted as the event’s emcee, counted skills like event planning, community organizing and public speaking among rewards gained from the forum.
“Honestly, I felt that what I did was something good for my own experience as well as for the people who attended,” he says.
Goodstein says Malone can consider his mission accomplished.
“This was definitely a great way to wrap up what we learned as sociology majors,” she says. “We used our knowledge of sociological theories and applied them to something that could really make a difference in the community, even if it was a small one.”
The Jersey City Independent
www.jerseycityindependent.com
Learning from Experience: St. Peter’s Students Engage & Organize the Community
Posted By Sarah Fishtein
May 22, 2009
Seminar student Daniel Rafael-Rios and professor Donal Malone
No longer chained to the tradition of textbooks and research papers, students in professor Donal Malone’s sociology senior seminar class at St. Peter’s College encountered a new task this spring. The graduating students helped organize a citywide forum on urban social issues, uniting community organizers, nonprofit leaders, public policy graduate students and community members in a dynamic atmosphere for discussion and change.
Called “Making Jersey City Work for Everyone,” the forum took place on Saturday, May 2 in the college’s spacious McIntyre lounge. The program was co-sponsored by the school’s Public Policy program and Garden State Alliance for a New Economy (GANE), a coalition of labor unions and community-based organizations that focuses on economic development. It was billed as a forum to discuss crime, affordable housing, local jobs, youth services and tax abatements.
Reaching Out
For Malone’s class of nine, the first step was identifying the salient issues. Drawing on classwork from the seminar and their backgrounds in sociology, they set out in the community to talk to Jersey City residents about their biggest concerns. Organizers from GANE provided support and guidance during this period.
Attending community meetings with groups like the Communipaw Avenue Block Association was just the beginning for these students. “We developed fliers, we made phone calls to politicians, we walked the streets talking with people, we sent out letters,” seminar student Daniel Rafael-Rios says. “I believe we utilized every form of outreach.”
For Rafael-Rios, learning how to conduct this kind of outreach was no easy task. It was time-consuming and even confusing at times, he admits.
“I had never done this sort of thing in my life, so I was constantly in contact with the professor asking him which steps to take,” he says.
Being forced to operate outside of his comfort zone was both intentional and necessary as a part of the learning process. In fact, Malone gave students advanced warning about the challenges they were to face in his class.
“This course has been organized to create opportunities for students and faculty to collaborate with each other and with local community organizations,” his syllabus for the seminar reads. “This [format] requires cooperation, respect and mutual responsibility. It also requires a lot of thought, investigation and analysis.”
Malone emphasized the importance of students engaging with the community at large. His intention was twofold: to provide a real-world application of “various aspects of sociology that students have studied for the last four years,” and to create a sendoff into post-college life that imparts valuable career skills.
“Connecting with the community is important to us as a college,” Malone added.
Students Kick Off the Forum
Although the room was barely half full at the seminar’s 10 am start time, latecomers continued to trickle in and by 11 am, the number of people had doubled. Attendees were roughly split between those affiliated with the event and community members. In all, 84 people sat in on the forum.
Maybe it was the mild, sunny weather or the courtyard’s plentiful wisteria vines that greeted attendees as they entered, but the attitude of the morning was decidedly cooperative — devoid of any combative scuffles.
During the first 45 minutes of the program, senior seminar and public policy students alternated at the podium with brief, statistic-heavy presentations about Jersey City issues they had researched.
Not surprising was the revelation that Jersey City zip code 07306 around Journal Square makes up the most culturally diverse area in the state. More startling were the citywide economic statistics. High unemployment rates, double-digit percentages of families living below the poverty line, and worrisome stats on education, dropout rates, affordable housing options and crime rates led to one conclusion: that Jersey City is failing to provide adequate opportunities for all of its residents.
“We have to ask ourselves, is this how we want to end up?” seminar students Jenae Johnson and Angelique Rios asked.
Following the student presentations, representatives from local nonprofits addressed the issues students had introduced.
Labor
Wayne Richardson, president of Laborers Local 55 and a community organizer with GANE, had news of new opportunities for local workers.
Richardson described a groundbreaking six-week training program piloted in Newark in which workers learned to update their skills with energy-efficient materials and practices. Upon completion of the training, the workers were sworn into Local 55.
Part of a so-called “green collar” movement, the workers’ training program is funded by a grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, with materials provided by the National Laborer’s Union.
The program is aimed at helping workers remain marketable in a tough economy, as well as introducing green building practices on a more widespread scale. Met with positive reviews from workers and city officials, the program is expected to continue and expand its capacity.
Richardson talked about the need for more job opportunities, rather than government subsidies like medical care and food stamps. It’s difficult to be part of the community, he said, “if you can’t stand on your own two feet.”
Jersey City truck driver Kenel Hyppolite, who was joined by Trina Scordo, a senior researcher with Change to Win Labor Federation, echoed the importance of self-sufficiency.
Hyppolite estimates his annual income is about $20,000 after expenses. As an independent trucker, he has to pay for the lease on his truck and all maintenance on it. His employer, the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, classifies 73 percent of the truckers who work regularly in the port as independent contractors, not employees.
Independent truckers like Hyppolite also struggle with health insurance costs. Hyppolite is currently going without — a costly proposition for someone constantly exposed to vehicle exhaust. With hypertension and heart problems, Hyppolite is having difficulty working these days — and when he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. Since he lacks insurance, he heads to the emergency room when his health acts up. The bills are accumulating, he said, and he is unable to get any credit.
He and Scordo say the answer is simple. They are calling on the Port Authority to hire its drivers as full-time, salaried employees — fair wages, benefits and all.
“They call us independent contractors, but we are like employees,” Hyppolite said. “They tell us what to do and if we don’t do it, we don’t have a job.”
Education
When seminar students Rachel Goodstein and Doris Mena told the audience that Jersey City lacks quality after-school programs, they found immediate support, as a ripple of agreement spread through the room, signaling a hot button topic for frustrated parents.
Having researched the availability of after-school programs by prowling the community and talking to parents, Goodstein and Mena concluded that kids in Jersey City simply do not have enough options after school.
They called for more funding, noting that although some programs offer scholarships, cost is often a barrier. But they also noticed a flaw that seemed easily fixable.
“There isn’t one single place that lists all the after-school programs,” Goodstein said, suggesting that better outreach to parents might get kids connected to services more efficiently. “Maybe the Board of Education can publish a list on its website: program, cost and place,” Mena added.
The ideal program, they said, would include a mix of academic and recreational activities. “There should be homework help, but also activities to pull the kids in,” Goodstein said.
Making it Work
All this talk was well and good, but many may have been left wondering just how an ordinary resident can get involved with these or other issues.
Orville Morales of the Citizens’ Campaign recommended that people go right to the source — elected officials — with ideas.
“Don’t just reiterate problems,” he said. “Come with a solution.”
Speaking of elected officials, one attendee wondered why none were present.
“Were any politicians invited to this forum?” Edwin Rafael-Rios asked. “Where are they?”
The answer was apparent as attendees looked silently around the room. Student organizers said they invited officials but were unable to get any confirmations.
Rafael-Rios, the father of seminar student Daniel, cautioned against a certain type of forum that is “all rah-rah. It’s a great idea, but people leave and nothing happens.”
A former federal agent from Queens, he said the key to the equation is involving city officials, including local police.
When citizens leave decisions up to the politicians, he said, “We forfeit our rights.”
Despite this missing link, attendees said they appreciated the forum. Jersey City native Curlie Chapple enthusiastically said the event was “absolutely helpful.”
Although Chapple works for Morgan Stanley and said she considers herself fortunate, as a single, middle-income parent she still faces challenges paying rent. She estimated that at least 45 percent of her income goes to rent.
She said she was pleased to learn more about affordable housing at the forum.
Opening Students’ Eyes
Goodstein says participating in the project “opened my eyes to something I was originally intimidated by.”
Rafael-Rios takes it a step further.
“People shouldn’t be forced to watch as their communities get gentrified and their heritage gets torn down by developers,” he says.
Both students agree that working closely with the community has helped them begin to make sense of some complex issues.
For them, community work appears to be contagious. Once they were exposed to local organizing, the students said, they felt compelled to continue with it. They are both considering community-oriented career options.
Rafael-Rios, who also acted as the event’s emcee, counted skills like event planning, community organizing and public speaking among rewards gained from the forum.
“Honestly, I felt that what I did was something good for my own experience as well as for the people who attended,” he says.
Goodstein says Malone can consider his mission accomplished.
“This was definitely a great way to wrap up what we learned as sociology majors,” she says. “We used our knowledge of sociological theories and applied them to something that could really make a difference in the community, even if it was a small one.”