[A closer look] 16 new projects approved for upcoming year

Sixteen proposed programs for the 2005-2006 year have already
been approved by the UCLA Center for Community Partnerships as a
part of its “UCLA in LA” project. Organizers of these
programs, which involve partnerships between UCLA faculty and staff
and members of the Los Angeles community, are in the process of
developing their plans for the programs they will conduct over the
next year.

The “UCLA in LA” program offers up to $50,000 in
grants a year to faculty or staff members who partner with a member
of the Los Angeles community in a project that focuses on children,
youth and families, economic development or arts and cultural
affairs. Each program has to be a year long, with certain
milestones achieved each quarter. In addition, the only UCLA
faculty and staff who can apply for funds are those with principle
investigator status or those involved in external research
projects.

“The intent is to encourage and to foster partnership
work,” said Margaret Leal Sotelo, assistant director of the
center. She explained that the program is an attempt to further
connect the UCLA community with the city of Los Angeles through
partnerships with campus departments and off-campus organizations
that have expertise in community development.

Programs that wish to receive funding must present the center
with a proposal that explains their goals, have a timeline of the
project and contain budget justifications for the grant. Approved
programs then receive funding in three payment installments over
the course of the year.

One of these programs, titled “Art as Activism: A
Collaborative Course Between World Arts and Cultures and the
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking,” focuses on
helping victims of trafficking through movement therapy classes.
The program involves a two-quarter course, developed by WAC
Professor Victoria Marks and Assistant Clinical Professor Kenneth
S. Chuang, in which graduate or senior students learn about the
causes and consequences of international trafficking and then
develop a class or program for clients based on movement
therapy.

“We propose that graduate students use the background they
learn to come up with some sort of community service project that
will help the CAST clients, most likely dealing with the category
of movement or dance or yoga,” Chuang said.

Physical movement classes are especially popular at the
Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking locations for many
reasons, including the fact that they offer clients an escape from
the reality of their everyday lives.

“The movement therapy facilitates interaction among the
clients, so there is a great deal of increased communication and
interaction among all of the participants,” said Bich Ngoc
Do, social services coordinator of the coalition. “They have
also told us that it offers them more self-control within
themselves, and they feel that because of having to exert physical
control over their own bodies, they feel that they are gaining a
sense of self-control.

“Lastly, participants have shared with us that when they
dance or when they move, they don’t have to think about their
own problems anymore.”

Another project to be funded through “UCLA in LA”
was developed through a partnership between UCLA Professor Timothy
Fong and the Asian Pacific Planning Council that provides medical
care, mental care and basic outreach to Asian communities. The
program, titled “The Impact of Gambling on Los Angeles Asian
Communities,” hopes to evaluate the causes and effects of
gambling of members of the Asian community living in Los
Angeles.

“We’ve seen a tremendous rise in legalized gambling
recently, and we now want to study what the impact of that has
been,” Fong said.

“The first thing we are going to do is screen as many
clients as we can so that we can figure out what the percentage of
clients is that have gambling problems. The second thing we have to
do is to understand if gambling is a strain to the Asian
communities, and if it’s affecting them,” he said.
“We have to find out if the communities themselves are
concerned and worried about gambling and what they have seen
gambling do to their communities.

“Thirdly, we are going to hold community forums where
we’ll hold roundtable discussions here at UCLA, where
we’ll invite members of the Legislature and people that run
the casinos in order to get everyone talking and on the same page,
and to come up with good, effective treatments.”

Fong also explained that the causes for the popularity of
gambling within the Asian community are largely unknown.

“It’s a combination of genetic influences, cultural
influences and environmental influences, but no one has really
studied this question before. We’re trying to understand it
from a medical or psychiatric perspective,” he said.

Another partnership that has been approved for the coming school
year is the “Museum Ambassadors Project,” organized by
UCLA Graduate School of Education Professor Teresa Battenburg and
Linda Blanshay, director of program development for the Museum of
Tolerance.

Their aim is to educate and inform elementary school students
and their families about what exhibits are at the Museum of
Tolerance, and to understand what urban Los Angeles residents would
like to see at the museum.

The researchers will send a group of about 25 education students
studying to be elementary school teachers and give them intensive
training about what the Museum of Tolerance has to offer. These
students will then develop their own presentations for elementary
schools ““ specifically urban schools in the southern Los
Angeles neighborhood of Watts.

“Our teacher-education program really focuses on our
students making a connection with the community where they teach.
This program would allow (the graduate students) to make a
connection, learn about the problems of the community, uncover the
assets of the community and, lastly, to learn about the needs of
the community members from the community itself,” Battenburg
said.