Drawing inspiration from each other

By Sophia Li

I arrived in Providence in the kind of daze that follows a night of half-dozing on a red-eye flight. At home in California and sitting in the airport, it was difficult to imagine how the summer would develop and wonder how this entirely novel experience would fulfill– and defy– our expectations, plans, and hopes.

But, true to form, our work with Project HEALTH got off to a running start. The past few days have been packed with training activities and time spent building a community among our Summer Institute volunteers, and the new students we’ve recruited to volunteer at the Family Help Desk have been ceaselessly impressive with their inquisitiveness and enthusiasm. “Constant and courageous learning” is one of Project HEALTH’s key values, and our volunteers have demonstrated how willing (and excited!) they are to spend this summer learning– about Rhode Island’s resources for low-income families, about the challenges families face every day, about Project HEALTH’s model for changing the system of health care in the U.S., about the city we live in, and about themselves as volunteers, students, and human beings.

This theme of learning and exploration will be critical throughout all of our summer’s activities. Two days ago, Emma and I took two groups of Summer Institute volunteers to different health care providers in Providence, including the Rhode Island Free Clinic, the homeless clinic at Crossroads, the Women & Infants Family Van, and several community health centers. Today, our Summer Institute volunteers are on a scavenger hunt in Olneyville to experience more directly the day-to-day lives of many of our families. They will find out how much a week’s worth of infant formula and diapers costs, try to find an affordable home, walk to a neighborhood park, and complete a number of other tasks.

As coordinators, we’re learning every step of the way how to make these activities engaging and informative. We’re learning how to teach and mentor our volunteers on a much more intensive level than we do during the semester, and the past few days have only made me more excited to see how our volunteers will continue to grow!

Project HEALTH Summer Institute

By Sophia Li

A crowd of people were gathered in the basement of the International Institute. I had come at an opportune time– the graduates of the Institute’s digital photography class proudly showed their work to families and friends. I was allowed a small window into their lives as well.

I was drawn to a picture of Providence in the rain, as it so often is. Two figures huddled together beneath an umbrella on the street. The photographer had captured them from a house’s window above, and she now pointed to her other photos, explaining all the where’s and why’s and when’s that were the story only she, the artist behind the camera, knew. Several were of the city at night; the street lights glowed, blurry and bright in the photographs.

I have never seen the view from the second floor of that house; I imagine I never will. But I have seen one moment that impressed itself upon this woman, newly arrived in this gray, rainy city.

The chance to step away from the frame of my own window’s view has been one of the most rewarding aspects of volunteering at the Family Help Desk for me. Through my clients’ experiences, I have learned a little bit about a Rhode Island that many residents must rely on RIPTA to navigate, a state government office whose caseworkers hang up on their clients before explaining to them why their children’s health insurance has been stopped, and a world where birthdays have become just another series of numbers to rattle off to the many agencies that record you in their computer databases– one more identifying number instead of the commemoration of your life’s commencement.

This is a glimpse into a world that I wish I could capture and show to everyone I know. It is the same one that I am familiar with, but slightly distorted, grimmer, hostile, daunting. The longest journey I have undertaken has not been a plane flight to the other side of the world; it has been the short trip down the hill into a universe that doesn’t seem to operate on the same principles of equality and justice. This summer I hope to work with a group of passionate, committed volunteers to widen their lens into Providence, and to learn to see my own new home from yet another angle– theirs.