By Rebecca Livengood

I came to Yale, in part, because I am interested in a career in politics. I had long appreciated electoral politics as a way of making people’s lives easier and giving voice to those normally outside of decision-making, and I was excited to be a part of this. I expected Yale to be a wonderful place to prepare for such a career. I realized when I arrived that I was in a city with some of the most active social justice organizing in the country. I didn’t have to wait until after college to be active, I could join the movement immediately!
There are incredible opportunities for Yale students to begin to make changes during their time at college.

This was a change from high school for me. I went to a small, relatively politically inactive school, and most of my political activity had been debate. This was fun and interesting, but it was not satisfying as political action, so when I came to Yale and found the Undergraduate Organizing Committee (UOC) I was thrilled.

The UOC is a group that fights for social justice at Yale and in New Haven. When I arrived as a freshman in Fall 2003, unionized Yale workers of Local unions 34 and 35 were on strike, and the UOC was active in its support of them. I joined the UOC in October when they were organizing to extend the Yale Homebuyer Program, a great program where Yale offers grants to encourage its employees to purchase homes in New Haven. The program at the time did not include Fair Haven, a largely Latino neighborhood that is partly cut off from the rest of New Haven by the highways. The UOC was successful, and Fair Haven is now included in the Homebuyer Program.

The UOC has also spent a good deal of time working with the Graduate Employees and Student Organization (GESO), pushing for measures that would increase the diversity of Yale’s graduate, and by extension, undergraduate programs. This year, Communities Organized for Responsible Development (CORD), a community organizing group in New Haven, joined the UOC to talk to residents of the Hill neighborhood of New Haven about ways in which the Yale-New Haven Hospital could develop responsibly in the Hill. I walked door-to-door in the Hill, speaking with residents about practices that affected
them. They called for accountability from the hospital, a seemingly all-powerful and untouchable institution. When I went with other students to CORD’s convention, my faith in the power of grassroots movements was confirmed. At the convention, CORD ratified the Community Benefits Agreement that they had compiled as a result of the canvass. Hundreds of people gathered to join in calling for economic, environmental, and racial justice. Individually, we are tiny compared to the hospital, but as a group with a broad vision of a community committed to justice, CORD is powerful.

Activism at Yale has many forms, and whether you are interested in working on the environment, issues of race or of gender and sexuality, labor, or any other question of justice, you can be sure that there are dedicated, welcoming students who will be working with you. You can be a part of shaping a broad, inclusive vision of justice in New Haven, on and off Yale’s campus. I have described something of my experience with the UOC, and you can learn more about this particular group at www.yaleuoc.com. You can also contact Emily Jones (emily.jones@yale.edu), who is a coordinator for the Social Justice Network, an umbrella group of activist organizations on campus.

del.icio.us! | Share on Facebook

See Also:

No related posts

<-->

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 6:44 am and is filed under Voices. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.