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Ask4HD (Ask for Human Diversity)

ASK4HD is committed to cultivating an experience of artistic expression for children who may seem different but are also very similar, and encouraging a celebration of this diversity through a process of co-creation. The group will build on a previous capstone project – “Mix It Up” – by the DLI Twenty Sixers (see: http://riley.furman.edu/diversity/group/2138).

Aurora

Aurora aimed to work with the elderly population of the Greenville community. To do this, Aurora focused on expanding an already existing project, Living Words, which works with the aged population in Spartanburg and introduces them to the art of creative writing through writing seminars and social gatherings.

These events aim to meet both the social and cognitive needs of the elderly. Aurora added a youth dimension to Living Words by recruiting high school students from the Greenville area to serve as teachers.

Baby Seeds Literacy Program

The Baby Seeds Literacy Program aspires to champion and support the connection between healthy early childhood “environmental” interactions and maximizing a child’s full intellectual potential. To achieve this aspiration, a firm foundation for future intellectual and emotional growth and development must be established. Such interactions with the child will be designed to occur prior to and immediately after the birth of the child.

Big Steps : Little Steps

The group elected to support two charities. Big Steps is the Little Project and Little Steps is the Big Project. 

Big Steps:

The group partnered with the Teen Achievers with the YMCA, a group that encourages teens to seek higher education to overdrive that program. Teen Achievers asked the group for help creating a contact list for volunteer and success coaches, companies willing to provide job shadowing opportunities to teens, and recruiting inspirational leaders to speak to high schools in our community.

Bridging Diversity GAPS in the UPSTATE

G.A.P.S. focused on the extension of effective emergency services to minority groups, specifically the growing Hispanic minority in the Upstate. G.A.P.S. noted that emergency services' ineffectiveness in responding to specific crises is often related to language barriers, as well as the general reluctance of the Hispanic minority to use emergency services for (1) fear of INS or deportation, (2) fear of losing U.S.-born children, or (3) prior negative experiences with authorities. G.A.P.S.

Come Yuh

Placing special emphasis on the growing Hispanic community in the Lowcountry, members of the Come Yuh team focused on ensuring healthcare to all people by overcoming language barriers. Group members presented information about the disproportionately high percentage of the minority population, and Hispanics in particular, who live below the federal poverty line and are uninsured. The team surveyed local health care providers to assess the need for interpreters and to examine existing barriers to providing primary health care to Hispanics with limited English proficiency.

Complex Molecules

The Complex Molecules group members focused on analysis of the local CARTA mass transit system in the Lowcountry. After reviewing information on the demographics of riders, the organization and diversity of CARTA employees, and the route system, group members concluded that several changes must be made in order to promote mass transit in the Lowcountry.

Cooking Up the Future

Cooking Up the Future seeks to alleviate some of the issues surrounding social mobility in Greenville. Greenville County is ranked twenty-fourth out of all the counties in the country for difficulty in terms of social mobility. The group identified an organization effecting important community change, Mill Village Farms, as a partner for the capstone project. Mill Village Farms has a paid summer internship program for high school students; the program is focused on students who come from low-income backgrounds.

DLI-ted to Bike

DLI-ted to Bike’s project is designed to help fifteen at-risk middle schoolers to get into the flow of “bike-friendly” Greenville. The middle schoolers will be from the Sterling Community, a neighborhood that is in transition. The DLI project will help provide these students with a more intimate overview of biking, better nutrition habits; and explain how to avoid poor eating and how a lack of exercise can lead to heath problems such as obesity, diabetes and a shortened life span.

Docs-Adopt in Clarendon County

The goal of the capstone project is to help to expand the Docs-Adopt Wellness Initiative to the I-95 Corridor. Docs Adopt is an initiative of MUSC’s Boeing Center for Children’s Wellness, and its mission is to form an academic and community partnership that will help the Center to understand how to best change the climate of participating schools to promote student and staff wellness and make the overall school and community environment healthier.