MARCH 19, 1998
Special to the Gazette
More than 80 students from Boston-area universities convened at the Institute of Politics last Saturday for the Project HEALTH-sponsored conference on “Service, Policy, Leadership: Meeting the Needs of a Child.”
While many college students are already involved in direct service to their communities, the conference provided an opportunity for them to consider the public policy and leadership aspects of their service, specifically toward Boston-area children.
“For these children, public policy is not just an abstraction,” said Project HEALTH Director Rebecca D. Onie ’97, introducing a panel of professionals involved in issues of children’s health.
The availability of health insurance coverage for children was a recurring theme throughout the conference. “It’s morally driven by a sense of righteousness. There is something wrong with a society that lets anybody go without health insurance,” said Robert Restuccia, executive director of the Boston health insurance advocacy group Health Care for All.
After the panel discussion, students divided into workshops addressing more specific aspects of life in the inner city, including nutrition, literacy, violence, and environmental hazards. The diversity of presenters demonstrated the multitude of approaches to improving children’s health. Presenters included Barbara Anthony, assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, Dr. Leon Eisenberg, Chair of the Department of Social Medicine at the Medical School, and Sergeant Tom Flanagan of the Boston Police Department.
Joshua Sharfstein ’91, a pediatrics resident at Boston Medical Center and Children’s Hospital, discussed the report that his Docs4Kids project released in February documenting the effects of inadequate housing on children’s health. “I think that there is not a lot of support for ending poverty right now. Making this report turned things more toward issues of health,” Sharfstein said. “The way we use public housing is bound to fail. It’s not the fault of the notion of public housing, it’s the fault of the way public housing is operated,” he said.
The conference’s emphasis on public policy did not overshadow the importance of student involvement in community leadership and direct service.
“There is a lot of power in students rolling up their sleeves on a regular basis and working in the community as you have in Project HEALTH,” said Paul Parravano, assistant for community relations at M.I.T. and moderator of the morning panel discussion.
The service fair in the afternoon gave participants an opportunity to share their service projects with each other. Groups from Harvard, M.I.T., Wellesley, and Brown brought displays showcasing their work, both with Project HEALTH and other programs.
“We are trying to put a human face on legislation. We are trying to connect policymakers with those who are affected by their policies,” said Lindsay Davison ’97, co-coordinator of Project HEALTH’s Human Faces project.
Project HEALTH is a program at Harvard and M.I.T. enabling undergraduates to join professionals at the Boston Medical Center (BMC) Department of Pediatrics who work to improve the health status and development of inner-city children and their families. Project HEALTH is composed of 18 different projects, including the Family Help Desk, which gives social service information to the families who come to BMC, and the Asthma Swimming program, which teaches children to control their asthma while learning to swim.
The conference concluded with a keynote address by Jonah Edelman, national director of Stand For Children. Edelman encouraged attendees to “live a life for the community,” as he talked about principles of community organizing.
“Organizing is not a gene you are born with, it’s an approach,” Edelman said. He concluded with a quote from Frederick Douglass, saying, “if there is no struggle there is no progress.”
Conference participants left with a greater sense of what form this struggle toward meeting the health needs of inner-city children can take, say the organizers.
“Seeing how inspired people are working on their projects, and seeing how inspired the speakers are, inspires me and gives me a goal to work towards,” said Jay Mehta, a senior at M.I.T. and Project HEALTH member.