UCB Amnesty International seeking information/opportunities to volunteer

[Alexis Campbell-Craven]

To Whom it May Concern,

Last winter I was blessed by the opportunity to volunteer
overnight/cook breakfast once a week at YEAH! (Youth Engagement,
Advocacy, and Housing). It was an eye-opening experience and taught me
so much about extending myself and relating to people from all walks
of life. I am writing you now as a representative from UC Berkeley's
student chapter of Amnesty International. One of our goals this year
is to combat the misconceptions, generalizations, and general
ignorance of students and community members regarding Berkeley's
homeless population. We are in the process of developing a long-term
project in which we hope to engage with different parties involved in
the issue of homelessness in Berkeley (i.e. shelters, law enforcement,
medical clinics, and most importantly – the homeless themselves) in
order to gather information about the demographic that could later be
shared with the larger University community. I understand that this a
delicate endeavor and we are trying to approach it in such a way that
we show appropriate respect, boundaries, and support for the homeless
population. Our final goal with this project is to educate the UC
Berkeley community about the issue of homelessness, but there is still
so much that we don't know ourselves.

We discussed several different ideas, but ended up deciding that the
best way to approach this project might be to first familiarize
ourselves a little further with the Berkeley homeless population. The
relationships I built with the youth at YEAH showed me that the
homeless make up an extremely diverse demographic. Just like any group
of people, there isn’t one particular way to interact with them or
approach them to offer a service. I was hoping that a representative
from your organization might be able to meet with us to discuss the
homeless demographic, what services are already available for the
homeless in Berkeley, and how we could potentially provide some sort
of service to the homeless as a medium to establish a relationship
with those people and gain a deeper understanding of their situation.
Even if such a meeting isn’t possible, we are interested in
volunteering at your organization and providing support some of our
local homeless.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or input, please contact me. I
check my email fairly regularly, but you can also reach me by phone:
(530) 409-7200.

Thank you very much for your time.

Peace,

Alexis Campbell-Craven
UC Berkeley class of 2010
Integrative Biology, Spanish

[Swathi Bhuma]

Dear Alexis,

     First off I just want to commend you for taking the opportunity to get to know the homeless population as well as the organizations that serve them before you carry out this task. Many groups unfortunately don't, so again, on behalf of Suitcase Clinic, we appreciate this more than you know!!

      That being said, there are already many groups on campus that are trying to do similar things this year (Calpirg, Habitat for Humanity, and Cal Corp). They are in charge of doing two major events: Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, as well as The Homeless Awareness Conference. Cal Corp also recently got a grant to specifically address poverty alleviation and there are many groups, including the Suitcase Clinic, that are taking part in developing and designing these events. Keeping this in mind, you may want to consider consulting these organizers and compare/contrast your idea and your purpose. I highly suggest collaboration as an alternative because these groups already have experience, and money (not to be blunt haha to say the least).

      Regardless of the outcome, as an organization, I am unsure of the amount of time we are have to invest, BUT we are definitely interested in the promotion of education/dispelling stereotypes of the homeless population. Let me, Stephanie Ullrich (our other PR coordinator) or our admin (ad...@suitcaseclinic.org) know of what comes about in these initial meetings with these groups, and we will try our best to guide you in what ever way we can.

Thanks again for your interest, and again I am extremely  happy about your desire to collaborate and establish a relationship with the population/population services you wish to serve! If you wish to meet with us, please feel free to shoot me an email!

-Swathi Bhuma and Stephanie Ullrich
Public Relations Coordinators
Suitcase Clinic