Bringing social issues to light during awareness week

Being aware of the issues is only the first step toward social change.

To that end, the Undergraduate Student Association Council’s Community Service Commission is holding Issues Awareness Week, a three-day event designed to not only promote understanding of social issues that impact the greater L.A. area, but also to give students the opportunity to see how student groups are taking action to effect change.

Monday marked the beginning of Issues Awareness Week with a miniature activities fair focused on hunger and homelessness.

Student organizations, including the Happy Feet Clinic and Swipes for the Homeless, set up booths in Bruin Plaza to educate students about how to get involved in actively helping the homeless.

Fourth-year biochemistry student Jonathan Ditty helped found Happy Feet, a clinic that provides foot care for the homeless. Ditty’s interest in helping the homeless began when he started volunteering at a shelter in Santa Monica.

“Everyone sees the homeless people in Westwood, and we feel bad, but we don’t know what to do so we just keep walking,” Ditty said. “For me, I met them and talked to them, and that made me really want to do something to help them.”

Ditty helped establish Happy Feet during winter quarter. Since then, the group has organized foot clinics where homeless people in Skid Row and Santa Monica can have their feet washed and examined by a doctor or podiatrist.

After their examination, the homeless are provided information about foot care and are sometimes given socks or shoes to help them take better care of their feet, Ditty said.

Though the average homeless person walks twice as much as a normal person each day, they often have poorly fitted shoes or do not have a chance to stop and rest, which contributes to foot problems. Diabetes is also a common condition among the homeless population, Ditty said.

If unchecked, diabetes can lead to foot infections that often result in amputation.

“It’s a really unchecked and unaddressed issue,” Ditty said. “These foot clinics are a way to serve the homeless in a really tangible way and provide care they need.”

As part of Issues Awareness Week, CSC will host a panel today on education inequality to engage students in fixing the public education system, said Amy Chen, CSC external programs director and third-year sociology student.

Then on Wednesday, Best Buddies at UCLA and CSC will ask students to pledge to stop using the word “retard,” said David Choe, activities director for the organization.

Best Buddies focuses on creating one-on-one friendships between people with intellectual disabilities and volunteer college students. Each student is paired up with a buddy for a year, and the pair maintains weekly contact.

The organization sponsors events for the buddies to attend, such as Thanksgiving dinner, L.A. Dodger games and bowling, said Choe, a third-year biology student.

A moment that defined Choe’s decision to commit to the Best Buddies program came in high school, when a few other students made fun of him and his buddy as they were walking to class.

“They called my buddy retarded, and it actually really hurt me,” Choe said. “It made me realize that people are really not educated about this issue.”

People are often uncomfortable around those with intellectual disabilities and don’t see the person behind the disability, he said.

By highlighting these issues, CSC hopes students will be encouraged to take action to help, Chen said.

“Disability rights is more about acceptance, while homelessness and education are definitely not problems that are going to be fixed overnight,” she said. “I hope that people will want to join a project or a service organization when they see how complicated these issues are.”