Outreach programs touch community lives

Outreach programs touch community lives

Office uses student mentors to empower people of color

By Anika Johnson

Daily Bruin Contributor

For UCLA alumna Petra Galarza, outreach programs have been an
essential part of her life.

First a participant and now the adviser of Latinas Guiding
Latinas, she attributed her success to the motivation she received
during high school.

Latinas Guiding Latinas is one of the many programs advised by
the Community Programs Office (CPO). Created in 1970 by a group of
concerned students, today the office provides educational, social,
medical, legal, and academic services to L.A. communities.

"(The CPO) was about empowerment," said Assistant Director
Isidro Rodriguez-Vasquez. "People had to learn about themselves,
their history, and their reality … Community service was not
about charity or false generosity."

Currently housing 28 student-initiated community- and
student-support projects, the office works to increase educational
opportunities in communities of people of color through programs
such as tutoring elementary school children and assisting prisoners
in getting their Associate of Arts degrees.

"In their environments, they do not see opportunity," said
Bernadette Atuahene, a third-year political science/African
American studies student and director of the African Education
Project. "When we come in (to the schools), we provide them with
another avenue. We show them that we are (in college), and all of
our tutors can relate to them."

Program participants strive to show community members that
college is an attainable possibility through mentoring as well as
by example.

"We have to look creatively at these populations because (people
of color) are in all types of social and economic situations," said
Mandla Kayise, assistant director of the Community Programs Office.
"We can not limit ourselves to those that are most ready and able
to go to college, but we have to look at the whole spectrum of
people out there (and) the different ways to tap into that
talent."

With the end of affirmative action in the university system, the
office may play a large part in the regents’ search for new ways to
maintain their commitment to diversity.

UC Berkeley began an outreach program titled the "Berkeley
Pledge," designed to target underrepresentated minorities for
admissions to the university. UCLA has not unveiled its outreach
campaign, though officials have promised one.

While Chancellor Charles Young has verbally stated his support
for student-initiated programs such as the Community Programs
Office, there have been no resources committed at this point.

"If the university is serious about their commitment to outreach
and directing its resources in that area, then I think our office
may play a larger role (in recruitment) than it has in the past,"
Kayise said. "But we have yet to see if there is any such
commitment as far as resources are concerned.

"I think that if we were able to use outreach programs to
intensify the efforts in our own communities, to better develop our
students and to prepare our young people for the challenges ahead,
(outreach programs) can be better than what we’ve had."

Administrators said they plan to meet future challenges by
recruiting more student involvement.

"I think the important thing is for us to remember that we are
assisting students to take a role in their community, taking
responsibility for the preparation of students for the university
and development of young people, Rodriguez-Vasquez said.

"It is a responsibility that we have taken independent of
affirmative action and we will continue that role as well as
continue to get more students involved," he continued.

Students currently working with the program said they receive as
much from the program as they contribute.

"I love kids … I think we are really making an effect,"
Atuahene said. "I hate to see children with lives that get lost
because they never knew there was another way to live."Comments to
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