By Lauren Sava, 2014-2015 Rochester Youth Year Fellow
Starting off my year as an AmeriCorps VISTA/Rochester Youth Year (RYY) Fellow, I was no stranger to the poverty statistics in Rochester. For our RYY orientation, all the Fellows were asked to read the 2013 Rochester poverty report, which outlined some pretty terrifying statistics. Rochester being the 5th poorest urban city in the US and Rochester City School District (RCSD) being the poorest urban city school district in New York State were among the most memorable. These statistics are alarming, daunting, and even a little discouraging. However, it’s even more challenging to figure out how to begin addressing the root problem: Poverty.
Over the past year, I have been able to attend a few conferences on poverty in Rochester. Although shocked by the high poverty level, I was pleased to learn that Rochester does host a significant number of conferences, summits, meetings, and focus groups on issues of poverty. If one thing is for sure, Rochester doesn’t lack passionate and educated individuals. Having the will to eliminate poverty is definitely not the problem here. After attending my first conference, I wondered how I never heard about these gatherings before? Was it just because I was in the undergraduate bubble for so long or were these conferences only now visible to me due to my VISTA position? After attending a few more conferences, my curiosity expanded to wondering why none of the refugee community leaders at my organization ever attended these conferences? There was always an expansive numbers of non-profit directors at these meetings, but a lack of representation among teachers, students, or leaders of different minority groups, such as African Americans, Latinos, immigrants, etc.
On my first day at my host site, a small non-profit that serves refugees, I met many refugees who held leadership positions within our organization. The mission of empowering others to lead themselves, as opposed to leading others, was encouraging. Who better to understand the needs of refugees, of low-income families, of African Americans, of students, then members of these same communities or individuals who lived through their same struggles on a daily basis? Outsiders can sympathize, but they can’t understand on the same level. Therefore, it is critical that leaders from these communities are involved in the conversation on poverty in order to truly achieve a comprehensive view of the problem.
Part of my VISTA assignment for the year has been to develop a pilot after-school program for middle school refugee students. One of the writing assignments they were asked to complete was a short essay on what they like and don’t like about living in Rochester. It was inspiring to see how articulate the students were, many of whom wrote about needing to provide more money to city schools so they can have new textbooks and better school lunches. The after-school program teacher didn’t ask the students to provide steps for how to change what they disliked; however, many of them verbalized this anyway. I see these insightful children as community leaders that should and need to be included in the conversation on poverty.
In order to accomplish this inclusivity, conferences and meetings need to be accessible to community members. This means holding meetings when school is not in session, so teachers and students can attend, and having them at locations easily accessible to low-income community members. Everyone needs to feel welcomed at these meetings, and diverse opinions and ideas should be valued. Hopefully then the conversation on poverty can turn into action steps and solutions.