Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Torch (October 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Invernaderos: La Búsqueda Por El Trabajo Estable Y Seguro Y Un Medioambiente En Peligro, Elli Matkin

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research is intended to discuss the rapid development of the “invernaderos” (greenhouses) on the coast of Spain and to expose both the social and environmental repercussions of such a massive agricultural project. The data was gathered through the use of both secondary sources and primary research. The author conducted a number of interviews both on the coast, in Motril and Carchuna, and inland in Granada city -- discussing the subject with owners of “invernaderos”, pesticide sellers, and cooperative workers.

The main conclusion of this research is that while the work of “invernaderos” is a security for many agricultural families …

La Integración De Los Inmigrantes: Una Sociedad Que Acoge, Weddy Worjroh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The first truth that I stumbled across upon arriving in Granada is that immigration has and continues to have a great impact on the society as a whole. I have always been intrigued by immigration because both of my parents were immigrants. Coming from a country that was built by the hands of immigrants, I get irritated when people say offensive things about the immigrants of today. Ever since I was a child my parents have told me many stories about the struggles and adversities they overcame in order to obtain a better life. For this reason, when I look …

Developing The Sacred: Local & Global Bikas In The Nepali Bhotkhola, Clayton Andrew Roger Hawkins Lewis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of bikas on community and culture. Research was conducted from 9-30 November 2010 in the Bhotia village Chyamtang in the Sankhuwasabha district of Northeastern Nepal. The forms of development observed at the site are separated into local bikas and global bikas, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Research focused on a two-year old development project initiated by The Mountain Institute (TMI) using medicinal plant cultivation and community participation. Methods for studying Bhotia culture and development took the form of interviews with local healers, religious figures, farmers, and TMI …

Sticks And Stones: The Strategic Use Of Development By The Maoists In The Mobilization Of Nepal‘S Rural Population, Iyla Shornstein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Nepal is a country with a brutal history of endemic domestic conflict and economic inequality. With the majority of the population living below the poverty line, development discourse has been crucial to political discussions for the past 20 years. The advent of the People‘s War marked a highly significant turn in the history of Nepali politics as the formation of the United Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-M) and the subsequent insurgency that followed brought issues of socio-economic equality and empowerment of marginalized peoples to the forefront of the national agenda. The CPN-M rapidly gained support predominantly in the rural countryside …

Análisis De “Proyecto Mirlo”: Aprendiendo A Acoger Al “Desconocido”, Abigail Bissette

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

During the fall and early winter of this year, I volunteered with a program called, “Proyecto Mirlo,” which is a small part of a larger organization, “Caritas,” whose focus is providing support to marginalized groups of people in Spanish society. Proyecto Mirlo is a subsection that provides free language classes for immigrants, as well as food and, in extreme cases, financial help. In my volunteer work, I taught basic Spanish classes to an eighteen-year-old immigrant from Senegal. As my student grew in his language proficiency, I grew in my teaching proficiency, especially on the discovery of teaching resources that I …

¿Amigos, Enemigos O Hermanos En Riña?: Cooperación Y Conflicto Entre El Gobierno De Morales Y La Confederación De Los Pueblos Indígenas, Antti Aki Eemeli Isoaho

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este trabajo investiga la relación entre la Confederación de los Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente, Chaco y Amazonía Boliviana (CIDOB) y el actual gobierno, es decir, identifica conflictos, así como áreas de cooperación recientes entre los dos. A través de la realización de ardua investigación literaria, distintas entrevistas y participación directa en la Gran Asamblea Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas (GANPI 2010), esta investigación propone responder de manera detallada la siguiente pregunta: ¿Cómo es y cómo ha evolucionado la relación entre el actual gobierno boliviano (liderado por un indígena) y los pueblos originarios del Oriente? Este estudio revela que a pesar …

Reconstructing Pitaguary Identity: Indian Exchange And Outside Resources, Tess Mcmahon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research explores the recent methods by which the Pitaguary Indians in Ceará, Brazil have been reconstructing and revalorizing their indigenous culture using outside resources. Like many Indian populations within the Latin America, the Pitaguary have lost their culture due to conquest, exploitation, and assimilation policies. Only in 1997 did the Pitaguary file for governmental recognition and territorial demarcation[1] as an indigenous group. Since the mid-1990s, the tribe has been engaged in ‘rescuing’ and rediscovering their traditions and their culture. Three years ago, in 2007, an organization called Movimento Saude Mental Comunidade do Bom Jardim[2] came to the …

A Review Of Psychosocial Support And The Challenges Faced In Disclosing Hiv Positive Status To Children In Kibera, Katherine Lesyna

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The AIDS pandemic has become an increasingly global problem as well as an everyday reality for most people living in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009, an estimation of the number of adults and children living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa totaled around 22.4 million.1 The people that have been affected most by the pandemic are women and children.
In Kenya, about 1.5 million people are infected with HIV, about 180,000 of them being children.2 While a lot has been done to reduce HIV infections and treat those who are infected, children have been left behind until recently. There is still much …

Una Investigación De La Cultura Y La Identidad Mapuche En La Escuela Municipal G-539 Chapod, Jessica A. Howard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Durante una estadía de tres semanas en la localidad rural de Chapod se realizaron observaciones y entrevistas con alumnos, padres y profesores de la Escuela Municipal G-539 Chapod, además de entrevistas con estudiantes en práctica de la Universidad Católica de Temuco, realicé una investigación sobre la cultura e identidad Mapuche en este establecimiento educacional. Encontré que aunque los estudiantes dicen ser Mapuches, ellos no tienen una cultura ni identidad Mapuche y, por tanto, la cultura e identidad Mapuche no permanecen  en la escuela de Chapod. Este establecimiento educacional está incorporando algunos elementos de la cultura Mapuche, pero a mi manera …

Torch (September 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (June 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Alma Del Vino Benefit Wine To A Fund For The Farm Workers Of San Luis Obispo County, Shane Christensen Hastings

Social Sciences

"Alma Del Vino" is a benefit that gives back 100% of the proceeds to a fund for the farm workers of San Luis Obispo County. Hard work and a dedicated work ethic has provided a bounty of fruits and vegetables grown from this fertile land, and has been the backbone in establishing a reputation for producing high quality wine fruit from this growing region. This wine is an opportunity to give back to those who work so hard, and are most in need.

Liminal Living At An Extended Stay Hotel: Feeling "Stuck" In A Housing Solution, Terri Wingate-Lewinson, June Gary Hopps, Patricia Reeves

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

As a result of unaffordable housing, many of America's working poor are forced to seek shelter in hotels to avoid homelessness. The concept of liminality has been used in discussions of place to describe the subjective experience of feeling in-between two states of being. Research is scant on the liminal experiences of low-income hotel residents, who are culturally invisible in society. This paper draws from data qualitatively collected via semi-structured interviews from ten low-income residents living in an extended-stay hotel. Descriptions of these residential experiences are presented along with recommendations for social workers practicing with families in this liminal situation.

Torch (May/June 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (April 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Interview With Danny Davis, Terence Sims

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 67 minutes

Oral history interview of Danny Davis by Terence Sims

Dr. Davis begins by outlining his introduction into activism and politics, when he served as executive director for the Greater Lawndale Conservation Commission in 1968. He explains how his definition of apartheid, which he is still fighting against, encompasses the massive underrepresentation of Black Americans in U.S. government positions. He details his childhood in rural Arkansas, growing up with ten siblings on a farm. He recalls early figures in the Civil Rights Movement in Arkansas, like the Little Rock Nine and Martin Luther King, Jr. He explains how …

Torch (March 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

Torch (February 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (January 2010), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Acting In Good Faith: An Economic Approach To Religious Organizations As Advocacy Groups, Anthony J. Gill, Steven J. Pfaff

Sociology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

"Advocacy groups are all the rage! Over the past two decades, a new cottage industry has erupted in academia examining the seemingly explosive growth in new social movements, advocacy groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that has occurred in Western industrialized nations and several developing nations as well. Many of these movements and NGOs have crossed international boundaries, feeding the notion that globalization is eroding boundaries between people all around the world. This literature certainly has added to our knowledge of how advocacy groups originate and operate. But curiously missing from these recent studies has been any discussion of what amounts …

Communalism Predicts Prenatal Affect, Stress, And Physiology Better Than Ethnicity And Socioeconomic Status, Cleopatra M. Abdou, Christine Dunkel Schetter, Belinda Campos, Clayton J. Hilmert, Tyan Parker Dominguez, Calvin J. Hobel, Laura M. Glynn, Curt A. Sandman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

The authors examined the relevance of communalism, operationalized as a cultural orientation emphasizing interdependence, to maternal prenatal emotional health and physiology and distinguished its effects from those of ethnicity and childhood and adult socioeconomic status (SES). African American and European American women (N = 297) were recruited early in pregnancy and followed through 32 weeks gestation using interviews and medical chart review. Overall, African American women and women of lower socioeconomic backgrounds had higher levels of negative affect, stress, and blood pressure, but these ethnic and socioeconomic disparities were not observed among women higher in communalism. Hierarchical multivariate regression analyses …

Torch (December 2009), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (November 2009), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Torch (October 2009), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Interview With Funeka Sihlali, Renell Schubert

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 92 minutes

Oral history interview of Funeka Sihlali by Renell Schubert

Ms. Sihlali begins by describing her childhood in King William’s Town when the Apartheid regime was instituted, living in government housing with her family in a single-room house with no bathroom, sharing a toilet with four other households. She explains having to learn the customs which were different from that in her home, for example, to look at African elders was a sign of disrespect, but outside of the home, she had to learn to make eye contact with white people to keep them from seeing her as …

Interview With Otis Cunningham, Danny Fenster

Chicago Anti-Apartheid Movement

Length: 98 minutes

Oral history interview of Otis Cunningham by Danny Fenster

Mr. Cunningham begins by explaining what it was like growing up amidst the Civil Rights Movement in Chicago, witnessing the reactions to the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. He explains how he first became involved in activism for African liberation movements when he joined the African-American Solidarity Committee where he served on the editorial board of their journal and he elaborates on the work they did. He recalls the social gatherings that sprung up through the movement. He explains the complicated history and relationships …

Institutions And Savings In Low-Income Households, Jami Curley, Fred Ssewamala, Michael Sherraden

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper examines the influence of structured savings program arrangements on the saving performance of low-income households in individual development accounts (IDAs). Data are drawn from the American Dream Demonstration (1997-2004), which looked at the saving performance of low-income households in matched savings accounts across the United States. Hierarchical multivariate regression is used to identify which specific structural program arrangements are important in influencing the saving performance of low-income families. Findings suggest that overall, structured program arrangements, including financial education, peer mentoring groups and saving targets are important in influencing people's saving performance-including low-income families.

Torch (September 2009), Brandon Baldwin, Civil Rights Team Project

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.