Current Scholar List

Back on Track is a self-sustainable, educational initiative to equip the former gang members of Homeboy Industries with goal-setting, financial literacy, and self-empowerment instruction. These men and women have encountered enormous barriers to leading a normal life, including poverty, substance abuse problems, a limited education , an adolescence spent in locked facilities as well as an absence of healthy mentors and role models. For this community, Back on Track will serve as an exit ramp off the freeway of street life. Homeboy Industries' staff members and LMU students will be integral to the execution of my project. In Phase 1, I will team up with Homeboy Industries to create an in-house curriculum that will train their selected staff and LMU student volunteers as instructors of Back on Track classes. This will help insure that the program is sustainable and content is communicated in an engaging and relevant manner to the audience of former gang members. Once completed, Phase 2 of the program will begin, and classes will commence. Along with instruction, classes will feature periodic guest speakers, individuals who have successfully graduated from Homeboy Industries. Guest speakers will share hope and lessons learned from their new lives, serving as role models for students. Phase 3 involves evaluating and adjusting instruction as necessary so that Back on Track flourishes. In summary, my program will use a combined strategy of instruction, role models, and ongoing assessment to create an inclusive, effective learning system. My goal is to motivate former gang members to begin a journey of transformation, turn their lives around, and successfully get "Back on Track".

The Pasadena School District serves over 18,000 students in 26 schools, in which nearly 80% of these students are minorities coming from disadvantaged backgrounds. The vast majority of parents are Spanish-speaking with limited English ability and no skill in computer literacy. This program strives to provide a platform and an educational environment where parents of elementary school students can learn computer, as well as English skills, and become more actively involved in their children's education. An added benefit is that this program will provide parents the basic skills to become competitive in the job market. This program is a collaborative effort with the Pasadena School District, and a future platform at Caltech will be established for the continued sustenance of computer education and quality teaching.

I propose to hold six monthly one-day Political Social Media Trainings for 25-30 leaders of local social justice activism groups. Each conference will occur on a Saturday at Occidental. I will invite different local social media experts to speak each month, and each week's topic will build on previous trainings. Over the course of the six trainings, I aim to: 1. Provide attendees with a basic to intermediate understanding of both the theoretical and practical use of political social media, 2. Assess the effectiveness of trainings and individuals' implementation by observing social media profiles and variations in agreed upon metrics 3. Promote relationships in real life and through social media between attendees to encourage ongoing learning, 4. Connect attendees with local social media experts.

The word Pachamama means "mother world" in the Aymara and Quechua languages, and Pachamama is the goddess associated with fertility, land and good harvests in the Andes. The Pachamama Project seeks to contribute to the realization of the human rights of gender equity and access to clean water and sanitation in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with the goal of improving female health through the hygienic management of menstruation. The lack of hygienic menstrual management (MHM) including the sanitary disposal of absorptive materials and clean water for girls to wash with, is connected to urinary and reproductive tract infection and illness, contributing to the stigma of menstruating girls as "dirty". The Pachamama Project, in collaboration with the organizations Fundacion Cantaro Azul and Water for People, will lead MHM education initiatives, facilitate discussion of women's health in relationship to water and MHM, and compile information regarding MHM into a Spanish and Quechua language report for use as an educational tool by government agencies, NGOs, and community groups. By framing MHM as a human rights issue, the Pachamama Project taps into larger discourses of justice and gender equality instead of sidelining MHM from the global water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) development agenda. By fostering community discussion, education, and participation in MHM activities, I hope that this project will broaden understandings of the human right to water, sanitation, and gender equity.

The Xinka language of Guatemala is now extinct, but the community has launched a systematic reclamation project to revive the language and ensure the preservation for future generations of this otherwise lost knowledge. The project's first phase, during the summer of 2012, received an overwhelmingly positive response, due to the publishing of high quality pedagogical material and the introduction of Xinka into the school system of Santa Rosa. This continuation of the project will achieve two goals in order to ensure long term sustainability: to promote the usage of the language beyond the classroom setting and to expand the coverage of Xinka to all geographical areas where it was once spoken. During the period of May 2013 - April 2014, the Xinka language will be brought back to the community through interactive workshops designed specifically to both teach the language in a practical way and to educate the people on the importance of reclaiming the language as a means of strengthening group identity and solidarity. We predict that language attitudes will grow even more positive and that Xinka will eventually be revived. The success of this project will therefore set a valuable precedent for the preservation of endangered languages in Guatemala and other countries.

Through a faith-based approach that is encompassing, tolerant and empowering, I hope to provide a space for youth, specifically women, to not only identify the societal impediments to their success, but also to strive for their own liberation within the context of economic stability, educational freedom, and personal relationships. My intent is to contribute to the unification of the community through a socially stimulating program consisting of workshops on issues and topics relevant to the lives of young women of color and ultimately create a co-operative that will support an empowerment scholarship fund. My approach is rooted in the Islamic philosophy and concept of Ummah which can be understood as a form of community organizing or unification that allows the participants to work toward empowering each other regardless of race, class and religion.

Diabetes and conditions related to metabolic syndrome have severely hit the US population in the last decades, and the Latino community has been badly and increasingly affected. Education and awareness on these topics are more needed than ever by a community that lacks access to free and culturally-aimed information. The Diabetes Interest Group (DIG)is an educational Program that was started by a student in the past, and takes place every Saturday at Clinica Tepati, one of the U C Davis student-run free clinics in the heart of Sacramento, CA. However, these classes can only reach the 25 or 30 patients that can be seen at Clinica on a given Saturday. Clinica has not taken in new patients since 2009. This makes it even more difficult for the increasingly under-served Latino community to obtain important information on health issues. With the new Project "Reaching Out for the Latino Community in the Central Valley Through Diabetes Awareness", the resources offered by DIG would be extended out to the community as a whole, without requiring people to be Cinica's patients. At the same time, more qualified undergraduate students would be given the opportunity to serve their community and develop leadership skills to successfully continue this Project in the future. This project will create both a more educated community in diabetes awareness and students with leadership skills as well as passion and love for their careers. Implementing a thorough approach as well as having this Project under the umbrella of Clinica Tepati will ensure sustainability for this Project even after the first year completion.

This project will prepare underrepresented ethnic youth in Myanmar who have strong interests in initiating community development projects to be able to carry out their dream projects. This project will develop leadership, critical thinking and communication skills of these ethnic youth leaders through a comprehensive program that consists of grant writing and volunteer management workshops, guest speakers, English skills trainings, library visits, and Touchstones discussions.These resources have been out of reach for ethnic students financially and socially because they have been disadvantaged in the country due to ongoing political conflicts between ethnic nationalities and government armed forces. This project is important because a project like this, carried out by Western-educated students, would have been impossible until recently, due to the harsh political situations of Myanmar. This project has been assessed by Myanmar educators and CONNECT Myanmar team, to have significant long-term impacts to address the frustrations of ethnic nationalities by encouraging youth-initiated community development projects. I am in a unique position to carry out this project due to the educational projects and the growing student network of CONNECT Myanmar, and its strong team that is enthusiastic to support me to make this project a success.

At the start of the 2012-2013 school year, Mini Medical School (MMS) was created under the advisement and supervision of Dr. Emma Simmons, Associate Dean of Student Affairs at U C Riverside, School of Medicine, by Katherine Tsai and 3 other undergraduate students. Mini Medical School will deliver a series of medically-related interactive workshops to help Riverside County residents conscientiously make healthier lifestyle choices and to empower individuals from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. The goal of MMS is not to replace the essential role of physicians, but rather to provide supplemental information to fill in the major gaps resulting from the low physician to patient ratio and limited physician-patient interactions time. Furthermore, with proper guidance and well-received support, this student-led project will expand and play a vital role in the pre-professional training of undergraduate students working in conjunction with post-baccalaureate, medical students, U C R School of Medicine and Graduate School of Education faculty.