MPA Program at CCNY
“What if we ignite the communities that are the most invested in and affected by the failing schools - to identify the leaders, and give them the opportunity to tell us what it is they need?” - Lorena Camacho, 2018 Social Innovation Fellow
Posterboards with detailed policy analysis, charts, and infographics covered the walls of the MPA office over the past month.
The projects were the culmination of the social innovation fellowship, a year-long program for MPA students aiming to find creative ways to address social problems, beyond existing policies.
Fellows receive scholarships provided by the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service to participate in the biweekly seminar, which runs parallel to MPA coursework and is facilitated by the program’s acting director, Natalia Trujillo.
“Our goal is to spur out-of-the box thinking and community-centric research to get to the root of longstanding, intractable social problems,” Trujillo said. “The ultimate objective is to facilitate an environment for fellows to turn research into action and make headway into a high-impact career.”
The first semester of the program introduces the core concepts of changemaking and social innovation through carefully planned readings, small group discussions, and fieldwork.
Students intern for the summer in organizations affiliated with the city’s social innovation hubs, such as Civic Hall, Centre for Social Innovation, DoSomething, Be Social Change, or Echoing Green.
The second semester is focused on developing the students’ own projects, which include root-cause analysis, a history of previously attempted solutions, and a pitch for a creative interventions.
Education Inequality
Students chose topics related to their personal and professional experiences. Kevin Mason, a special education teacher in Harlem, tackled the problem of unequal access to education.
Mason used open data to make a heat map showing that specialized high schools in the city draw primarily from a handful of high-performing middle schools clustered in Manhattan.
Students and families at the three quarters of middle schools that send few or no students to specialized high schools lack the necessary information and test preparation services, Mason concluded.
To respond to this need, Mason founded a 501(c)3 called Bridges: BX and Beyond, Inc. to give information and test preparation services to marginalized middle schools.
Lorena Camacho also worked on education inequality but explored ways to improve schools from within, motivated by her experience navigating the public school system with her two children.
In the past decade, the city has attempted to improve schools by equalizing funding, providing direct services and teacher training, and encouraging entrepreneurship through charter schools.
According to Camacho, these initiatives have failed because of economic recession, unrealistic timelines, bad incentive structures, and a one-size-fits-all approach, among other factors.
“What if we ignite the communities that are the most invested in and affected by the failing schools - to identify the leaders, and give them the opportunity to tell us what it is they need?” Camacho asked.
Camacho plans to use the Design Thinking Process, which incorporates parents, neighbors, and other local stakeholders as central protagonists in the problem-solving process.
Stopping Child Marriage
In Raisa Alam’s native Bangladesh, 65 percent of girls marry before age 18, leading to higher rates of school dropout, domestic abuse, maternal mortality, and HIV, as well as lack of financial independence.
Alam said a decisive factor in the persistence of child marriage is the culture of gender inequality that dehumanizes women.
She proposes introducing feminist pedagogy into Bangladeshi schools, to target the necessary transformation at a deeper cultural level.
Feminist pedagogy focuses on reversing gender stereotypes from the earliest ages and promoting equal gender relations in the structure of the classroom as well as the multidisciplinary curriculum.
Destigmatizing Postpartum Depression
Jocelyn Gao dedicated her time as a fellow to promoting awareness about the lack of access to post-partum depression screening and treatment for low-income women in NYC. She also addressed the cultural taboo against recognizing mental health issues.
One in seven women – including women from all socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic groups – suffers from post-partum depression, which includes intense anxiety, hopelessness, and even anger toward the child.
According to Gao’s study, post-partum depression is more common than a range of health conditions for which pregnant women and new mothers are routinely screened, including gestational diabetes and pre-eclampsia.
As a solution, Gao explored different avenues of integrating mandatory preventive mental health screening into maternal health care practices.
The MPA Program’s next group of social innovation fellows will begin their work this spring. Selected based on the merits of their project proposals, these fellows will tackle housing access, voting rights, and maternal health care.
Want to become part of the MPA Program? Apply now to join us in fall 2019!
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