Community Engagement and Public Service Activities

Students assessed the effects of one care farm location to discover ways to improve the positive effects of, and to collect data to support the promotion of, more farms in other locations. A key aspect was the issue of community building around these farms, and how students and families interact with the farm's activities. The students conducted interviews at one of the farm's sites (John R Wooden HIgh School) to collect these data, and also had frequent interviews with the organization's director.

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE) builds community power and leadership for economic justice by focusing on tenant rights, healthy housing, and equitable development. 

In this project, a team of students from the UCLA Master’s of Social Science program (MaSS) developed and administred an evaluation survey to assesss the impact of SAJE's Tenant Action Clinic (TAC) . TAC is a weekly workshop run by SAJE staff and volunteering lawyers who educate low income tenants in Los Angeles County (predominantely Latinos, Hispanic and African American families) about their rights and advise them when they are faced with unlawful evictions and issues to do with inhabitability of their homes (i.e. code violations). The evaluation of TAC was executed through a series of structured interviews with tenants over the phone. Findings highlight the value that tenants see in TAC as well as offer a number of methods to increase attendance and to follow up with tenants to facilitate resolution of problems.

Our group's target population is high school students who have at least one foreign-born parent and thus identify as second-generation. As children of immigrants or immigrants ourselves, we know first-hand that as trusted messengers in our household, we are uniquely positioned to engage in discussions about the Census with our loved ones. This generally extends to second-generation immigrants, who tend to explain political information to their parents and families. As such, we want to equip youth populations with accurate, applicable information about the 2020 Census, so they can be an informed trusted messenger for their communities.

For the next ten years, the data collected from the 2020 Census will have political and financial implications for underrepresented communities. Although this project centered around advocacy efforts for 2020, we hope that the materials and information live beyond this course and will be applicable for future generations.

Students served as intake specialists at Bet Tzedek. This experience allowed students to assist prospective clients via phone or email and direct them to the appropriate means of support within the realms of housing rights, unemployment, elder abuse, and business protection. If Bet Tzedek could not provide support for the client's needs, students would assist the client in accessing an appropriate legal service.

Students completed archival research to document the history of commercial buildings and houses in Boyle Heights as part of a larger effort for historical landmarking and historic preservation of the streetscapes of Boyle Heights.

In December 2018, the Green Together collaborative, a diverse group of public and non-profit sector partners, received a Transformative Climate Communities (TCC) program grant from the California Strategic Growth Council (CA SGC). The proposal focused on investments in Pacoima and Sun Valley, city of Los Angeles neighborhoods in the northeast San Fernando Valley with a long history of environmental injustice. The award will bring in $23 million of public money raised through California’s Cap-and-Trade program to the project area for development and infrastructure projects to achieve significant environmental, health, and economic co-benefits in the state’s most disadvantaged communities. While the significant investment is expected to generate numerous positive benefits for local residents and businesses, these transformative investments also bring the risk of displacement in the working class community. To address the possibility of gentrification and displacement, CA SGC requires TCC program grant awardees to prepare and implement a Displacement Avoidance Plan (DAP). UCLA’s Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) and Professor Vinit Mukhija from UCLA Urban Planning, are providing the lead grantee (Pacoima Beautiful) with research on how to develop a Displacement Avoidance Plan.

As part of their work with the Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas de Norteamérica, students assist with commmunity outreach, citizenship workshops, and logistical support in Spanish. Some specific tasks have been carrying out phonebanking to explain the Water Talks initiative, conducting an opinion survey of community members throughout the San Gabriel Valley, assisting community members with census registration, and filling out the citizenship application form. Additionally, in 2020, students provided assistance with the transition of organizational resources to digital platforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Final projects include the creation of  informational materials in English and Spanish regarding the Water Talks initiative, legislation to protect water reservoirs in the San Gabriel Valley, a digital petition in support of the legislation campaign, a video on the process to obtain citizenship, and bilingual electronic cards to prepare for the naturalization civics test. 

The students involved with the organization Knowing Neurons perform translation services and community outreach. The goal of the organization is to make neuroscience accessible to a broad public. In this particular project, students with a passion for both Spanish and neuroscience translate articles from English into Spanish, interview Spanish-speaking neuroscientists (see podcast section on the website), and conduct workshops for Latinx youth on the path to earn a STEM degree. The translations are reviewed and edited by a linguist, Dr. Carla Suhr from the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and a neuroscientist, Dr. Rafael Romero-Calderón from the UCLA Neuroscience Interdepartmental Program. 

In LA County, service providers rely on government funding to assist youth experiencing homelessness. Existing literature acknowledges the unique problems that the youth subpopulation confronts. Moreover, research notes that the most effective services for youth are youth-focused, and the availability of services is directly correlated with the supply of funding.

This community engaged research project began by questioning whether youth funding allocations in LA County meets the reality of the youth homeless crisis. To perform an analysis, the researcher worked with two community-based organizations and a national agency to conduct an analysis of funding allocations from three sources—HEAP, HHAP round 1, and Measure H funded contracts—to form a representative view of the LA funding ecosystem. Further analysis occured at the LA City Council District, County Supervisorial District, and County Service Planning Area scales. The researcher found trends that implicate inequitable funding allocations and a concerning lack of accessible and accurate data.

At Spicy Green Book students were tasked to conduct comprehensive research of Black-owned restaurants in different states which would be included in the development of Spicy Green Book’s national directory of Black-owned restaurants.

The interns at People for Successful COrean REunification (PCORE) care deeply about the rights of North Korean people. Knowing those rights will be respected only when reunification happens, they try their very best to aid in making reunification happen faster.

Education Interns managed the education programs for North Korean defectors living in South Korea, providing them with additional educational opportunities and resources intended to help them achieve their educational goals and advance socioeconomically. They also managed the database of North Korean defector students and volunteer tutors and maintained regular contact with them. Interns conducted interviews and screenings to evaluate every students specific needs. They phased in a brand-new feedback system in order to get meaningful evaluation of their services and began a partnership with US high schools and universities in which US high school and university students helped North Korean defectors practice English conversation. Interns also had the opportunity to help with research grants and advocacy campaigns in order to raise more awareness about the human rights situation in North Korea.

Dr. David Shorter has secured a large community investment grant from the California Community Foundation (CCF) through his Archive of Healing, one of the largest databases of medicinal folklore from around the world. Over the next three years, the Archive of Healing will work with partners in Indigenous Tongva communities on projects related to community health and wellness. The $50,000 grant will provide a much-needed response to the damages brought on from COVID-19.

The intern developed their museum education project centered around bringing materials from a past exhibit on to an interactive online platform. They conducted research, made all the designs and incorporated a social justice and advocacy lens to shed light on issues of homelessness in Los Angeles. Further they investigated the history of homelessness in LA, causes of homelessness, public policy and stories and interviews from people experiencing homelessness that were a part of the Museum's One of Us exhibition. The intern also participated in weekly staff meeting to check in with their advisor and gain important feedback. They also got to learn about the process of developing new exhibits in partnership with community groups such as BLM LA.

This community engaged course (formally designated as NEUROSC 192CX; Drug Abuse and Society: Conveying Concepts to High School Students) is designed as a follow-up for Neuroscience C117/C277 (Drugs of Abuse: From Neurobiology to Policy and Education) and prepares students to give an accurate, knowledgeable and age-appropriate presentation in the area of drug abuse to students at local high schools. The course is designed to: a) increase course participants’ knowledge about drug abuse issues (including policy, biology and statistics) in our society, b) provide UCLA students the opportunity and training to effectively translate their learned information of abused drugs to an at-risk population and c) allow bidirectional communication between college undergraduates and high school students and teachers.

The current approach designed for improving elementary student achievement widely emphasizes a “one size fits all” model that is made to target the U.S. K-5 population. However, this method has been proven ineffective in improving nationwide K-5 student achievement levels. In order to address this issue, the literature has suggested that academically low-achieving elementary schools embrace community-based leaders that promote sustainable relationships and nurture higher student academic achievement. This paper utilized community-engaged research through the active participant observational model. A community-based organization known as Koreatown Youth + Community Center (KYCC) was closely observed in order to assess the tools used to serve their low-income, diverse K-5 students. The community-based organization’s assistive tools such as academic aid, social emotional learning curriculum, and surprise supplemental activities were looked at through the lenses of Andrew Furcos’ Legitimization Factors framework that determine if the partnership is effective, mutually beneficial, and sustainable. The importance and implication of this research may suggest that communities alike can use these factors or find other beneficial elements in order for CBO’s to stimulate academic achievement amongst disadvantaged K-5 students.

In this project, a team of students from the UCLA Master's of Social Science program (MaSS) conducted a phone survey to evaluate outcomes of a particular service of the Tenant Action Clinics (TAC) run by Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE). TAC offers advising and information session to support low income tenants in exercising their housing rights and reporting building code violations in South Central Los Angeles. The phone survey of tenants who attended TAC tracked the outcome of these educational clinics and found that approximately 1/3 of the tenants had successfully reported code violations, although only 1/3 of the reported violations were resolved by city inspectors or landlords. For the remaining 2/3 of tenants, major barriers to reporing code violations included threat of eviction from landlords in retaliation and language barriers in communicating with city code enforcement and inspectors.

In this project, a team of students from the UCLA Master's of Social Science program (MaSS) assessed the services provided by Seeds to Plate to the Mark Twain Middle School community in Mar Vista by observing program activities, interviewing program director and school teachers and administrators, and surveying research on the impact of school gardens. Developmentally, middle schoolers face new social and academic challenges, and ethnically diverse and predominantly low-income students may also be affected by lack of adequate nutrition or distress related to instability in home life. As an alternative to a traditional classroom, gardens offer students activities that can increase engagement and afford teachers innovative pedagogies. The team found that the garden space fostered a sense of community and belonging for students, and helped students develop leadership, independence, and enthusiasm for learning.

At Freedom for Immigrants, students were involved in activities leading up to the development of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Complaints. Students supported with drafting and transcribing hotline calls from people in detention to document civil rights violations in immigrant prisons and jails across the country. 

At LA Forward Action, students were involved in various levels of political advocacy. Student’s supported data collection, conducted phone banking, and participated in community outreach efforts. Students' efforts contributed to expanding political education in Los Angeles.

While at the Grow Cycling Foundation, students researched how cycling has historically been an obstacle in the Middle East for women. Students examined the history of restrictions on cycling and how they have impacted women in the region. Students also researched resources available to women who recently immigrated from the Middle East and explored opportunities to provide outdoor programming. Students produced a report to capture the historical and political impact restrictions to cycling have had on girls in the region and recommendations to bridge this gap. Students’ findings will be used to outreach to Middle Eastern communities and athletes to expand community partnerships.