Social Justice

Promoting Educational Equality:

Moore Community House Early Head Start

http://www.moorecommunityhouse.org/ehs

Children living in poverty frequently do not have access to high-quality early childhood care and education, resulting in future gaps in academic achievement and emotional development. Moore Community House reduces educational inequity by providing free high-quality early childhood education to disadvantaged children living in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The organization originally served the children of seafood workers in 1924. Ninety years later they are still located in downtown Biloxi offering the only free Early Childhood program servicing Harrison County. MCH promotes school readiness for children in low income families by offering educational, nutritional, health, social, and other services that enhance the whole family.

The Early Head Start program provides comprehensive services to low-income families with pregnant women, infants, and children up to 3. These services include a Child Care Food Program, Comprehensive Family Services Counselors, Expectant Mothers Program, School Readiness Program, and Employment and Training Referrals. Research has shown that 3 year old children enrolled in Early Head Start programs perform significantly better on a range of measures of cognitive, language, and social-emotional development than a randomized control group.

Social Justice Learning in the Classroom

We got to spend time in the classrooms interacting with children and assisting the teachers to see how the children and families are benefiting from this program. Ensuring social justice means ensuring individuals have fair and equal access to the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society. Families living in poverty, which intersects with race and ethnicity, are unjustly disadvantaged in society. In 2010, the poverty rate for white Americans was 13% while it was 27% for Blacks and 26% for Hispanics. One of the most important factors contributing to a life of poverty is educational opportunity. Without being able to achieve the necessary education, the cycle of poverty continues. MCH aims to end this cycle and promote social justice through providing quality early childhood education to kids vulnerable to getting stuck in the cycle of poverty.

We will apply the social justice issues we learned from Moore Community House to advocate for equal, affordable access to early childhood education in our community. The Iowa City School District is no stranger to racial disparities in educational outcomes. Witnessing the amazing work MCH does to reduce these inequities has inspired us to analyze educational institutions and come up with solutions to reform them.

PROMOTING WOMEN in the workforce:

Moore Community House Women in Construction Program

http://www.moorecommunityhouse.org/winc

In Mississippi, women make up half the work force but more than 2/3 of minimum wage jobs. For many of these women, with children to support, their living wage is not sufficient. Construction trade jobs provide an employment path that leads to higher wages and self-sufficiency. The Women in Construction program was created to help bring women and their children out of poverty, while also meeting the demand for skilled workers in construction trades. They provide a free job training program to train women for careers in craft trades, which includes formal coursework and practical, hands-on experience. Since 2007, the program has trained more than 300 women and placed 70% of these women in construction jobs.

The Women in Construction program fights inequality, poverty, and limited access to education- social justice issues that plague Mississippi, just like anywhere else in the world. Men dominate the construction and trade fields and this program is helping to slowly introduce more women into this professional path. By working in this career field, women can start to earn more money overall and get away from minimum wage jobs that hold them in poverty. By receiving more education and training, these women are also able to place themselves in a better position to afford education for their children. It is a cycle that has been helping to lift women in Biloxi out of poverty and on to a trajectory towards a stable and sustainable family life.

During our service trip to Biloxi, our team worked with this amazing organization for one day. Our actions may have been small, but they have reverberated throughout the whole structure of the program. Some of things we did there included: breaking up pallets, pulling nails out of pieces of wood, raking the grounds, sweeping and cleaning inside their office building currently being renovated, putting in flooring, and sanding the floor. These things might seem small, but they have made a difference. By breaking up pallets and pulling nails out of wood, we created a stockpile of practice wood for the students to use in their training. Without this wood, they would have to spend more time getting the wood ready themselves and less time actually practicing the skills they learned. By cleaning, sanding, and putting in flooring in their office building, we helped prepare an area that will later house new computers for the students to use in their job search preparation. The program directors and implementors at Moore Community House are doing amazing work and we are glad that we were able to take action to see their program continue to run smoothly!

ADVOCATING FOR NEGLECTED AND ABUSED CHILDREN:

CASA of Harrison County

https://casaharrisoncounty.org/

CASA is a national, court appointed youth advocacy program for children who are abused and/or neglected. There are nearly 1,000 CASA programs in 49 states with over 76,000 volunteers. These volunteers work one-on-one with children who are abused and/or neglected. All too often, the voices of these children become lost during court cases. Fortunately, CASA volunteers step in to help restore some of the missing social justice and strive to shine the light on the child's voice and needs. Once CASA volunteers are assigned to a court case, the volunteer will drop by the child's house once a week for about an hour to meet with the kiddo and see what the family situation is like. These volunteers then attend court hearings to speak about what they see in the house. CASA aims to help rebuild the child's trust and hopefully help restore a family's equilibrium and get them back on track so they child can still live with their family in a safe and permanent home. CASA always attempts to have the child be reunited with their family so they are not placed in foster care and estranged from their family with no steady living situation.

Besides recruiting volunteers and checking in on homes, CASA aims to raise awareness about child abuse in numerous ways including attending fundraisers, town meetings, galas, and county programs. While we were at CASA of Harrison County, they were preparing for an upcoming gala that would raise money for the CASA program. Additionally, we were able to meet with the mayor of Biloxi, MS which can be seen in the bottom right hand photo.

All of the volunteers at CASA have intense background checks done to ensure that these children will be exposed to wonderful individuals that try to be a steady adult figure in their life. Due to this protocol, we were unable to work directly with the kids, but we had the pleasure of speaking with Debra Foster, the social worker for CASA of Harrison County, and Roy Kitchell, the executive director. We learned lots of details about how non-profits work and what the house visits for a volunteer look like. Later on, we looked more into the organization and found out that there is a CASA right in Cedar Rapids!