This blog post is part of Akhila’s “Be the change” series and is also posted on her website here. Much thanks to Akhila for hosting this awesome series – I suggest you check out all the other entries! All have great insight
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I’ve been attempting to find time and contribute to this awesome blog series “Be the change” thanks to Akhila, and of course, I am writing this instead of working on a paper that’s due in a few days.

Prior to attending school at UC Berkeley, all I knew was that I was interested in “business” and “changing the world” (or more specifically, I used to say “starting a revolution”). Little did I know that individuals such as Muhammad Yunus were already doing so! My friend introduced me to the concept of “social business” and “social entrepreneurship” around second semester of my freshman year, and that was when it all began.

I embarked on a Google-ing, internet-searching quest to learn more about this concept, and ended up first reading Yunus’ book, Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism. From then on, I’d continue to read articles, books, and scour the Internet for more about social entrepreneurship and social business.

I often stop and reflect on why it is I seem to have this insatiable need and want to help others and improve the lives of the less fortunate. For the most part, I think it’s because I have grown up with so much opportunity laid in front of me, the privilege of living in a nice community and have the comfort and support of my parents. Maybe I was too comfortable that I became uncomfortable with my comfort. Does that make sense?

Perhaps it’s why I want to pursue a career in poverty alleviation through the power of social business and entrepreneurship. I happened to be born into a family that gave me the opportunity to obtain a good education. It was chance that I was born in Taiwan to parents who wanted to pursue a better life in the United States and brought my sister and I here. What about others who live in poverty and are not presented with the opportunity of obtaining an education, of living a privileged life? How is it their fault?

It’s not, and it’s a thought that resounds in me and propels me forward. I joined a student grassroots organization CalPIRG my freshman year, and by the second semester my friend and I started the Hunger and Homelessness Campaign, where we tried to tackle food insecurity in West Oakland. I then proceeded to help plan, in collaboration with two other student groups on campus, a conference on hunger and homelessness in the Bay Area. On the side, I worked with a local homeless shelter to establish and implement recycling and composting programs through another student organization BEACN. These experiences have helped me improve my skills and have provided me more insight in ways of addressing poverty. However, the models and methods of social business and social entrepreneurship are what really motivate me.

I’ve found it difficult to advance much in attempting to be more “in” the field (I am so inspired by social businesses such as the one I interned with this past summer World of Good, and projects such as the Allyu Initiative), because I often find myself constrained in my schoolwork and the fact that I am still in school. I’m often impatient in my demands, and too much of the time I’d rather be out there and immerse myself in a community and area to learn about the issues and critically evaluate ways to tackle them. I have to stop and remind myself that my getting an education is an important aspect: I need to focus on learning as much as I can in school so that I can apply it later on.

In the meantime, I have found the Twitterverse and the blogosphere to be of great company. It’s been absolutely inspiring and just plain awesome to be connected to other Gen Y-ers such as Akhila, Dwight, and Leslie and know that there are so many who are interested in similar topics and care about issues other than the best way to maximize profits and how to make the most money. So, I’d like to conclude by thanking Akhila once again for encouraging others to engage in social change and bringing together awesome individuals in this blog series!

The Berkeley Hunger & Homelessness Conference 2009 is an event that I’ve been working to put on, along with other student organizations on campus, for a while now. Although I must admit that throughout the planning process I was never extremely ecstatic nor optimistic about the turnout and the event itself, I think I’ve began to raise my expectations for this conference on Thursday. It seems like (or I hope that) there will be quite a few attendees, and we have a pretty good variety and range of speakers.

A group of students on campus have also made a short student documentary on homelessness in Berkeley. We previewed the documentary yesterday at our meeting, and I must say – it looks fantastic, and I hope that those attending our event will enjoy it as well. The short documentary can be viewed here: it includes interviews with UC Berkeley students, a UC Berkeley professor, formerly and currently homeless individuals, and volunteers at homeless shelters.

My hope is that this conference will encourage dialogue and discussion about just what “homelessness” means, and hopefully address and dispel stereotypes and the stigma around homelessness. Furthermore, I hope that the conference will increase awareness about the food insecurity that exists in West Oakland (53 liquor stores, 0 grocery stores), discuss the inextricable linkage between hunger and homelessness, and address “sustainability” also as an overarching topic –

1. How does the lack of grocery stores in West Oakland affect our local food distribution?
2. Why is “homelessness” as an issue in Berkeley unsustainable?
3. How do we address these issues on a local level so as to become a more sustainable city?

And, most importantly, discuss what students and the community could do to alleviate hunger and homelessness. Although I feel that there are larger issues and steps that must be taken to truly address hunger and homelessness, the first step is awareness and education about these issues, and hopefully this conference will do just that.

As Obama said himself from The Huffington Post article,

“Part of the change in attitudes that I want to see here in Washington and all across the country,” [he said], “is a belief that it is not acceptable for children and families to be without a roof over their heads in a country as wealthy as ours.”

I will update here after the actual conference with (hopefully) positive thoughts and reactions. Until then!

The conference definitely exceeded my expectations. We had over 120 participants, and a diverse crowd. I really enjoyed hearing Osha Neumann speak about the stigma that surrounds “homelessness”: the way people refer to those who do not have houses “the homeless”, even though we don’t refer to people who do have houses “the housed.” I noticed that there was a lot of discussion about being “politically correct”, if you may call it that – otherwise, I guess we can just say our sensitivity, in referring to those without houses “homeless” or categorizing the “problem” as “homelessness.” I can now say that I do feel self-conscious whenever I say “the homess”, and yet I don’t know whether saying “those who are homeless” is any better. I’ve never really been good at being PC…regardless of the term.

One example that Osha Neumann gave that was just so telling of how unequal, corrupt, and fundamentally messed up about our society: someone who was chased, arrested, and jailed for stealing $6.50 worth of food/etc. from a store, versus those on Wall Street that stole millions and billions of dollars and there was so much debate over how to “punish” these people. This is what we call a double standard, and in this case, it should NOT exist! When he put it that way, it was just so dumbfounding and absurd to me…

I also enjoyed hearing Robert Ratner, Housing Administrator of Behavioral Health Care Services in Alameda County, speak about EveryOne Home. I’m not going to lie – I don’t know much about housing policy and legislative policies both regionally and nationally over the years, so I don’t have much commentary about this. However, I do have a description of EveryOne Home’s mission:

EveryOne Home envisions a system of care in Alameda County that by 2020, ensures all extremely low-income residents have a safe, supportive and permanent place to call home with services available to help them stay housed and improve the quality of their lives.

I think that the conference overall was a success: it brought together many different student groups (even more than the three – Cal Habitat for Humanity, The Suitcase Clinic, and CalPIRG - that had planned the conference), people from the community – both “the housed” and “the homeless” (trying to avoid having to be PC when mentioning these “two groups”..blah I don’t know how), and people of all ages. I hope it was helpful, informational, and maybe even inspirational for those who attended… This conference could become an annual event. But we’ll have to see about that.

Until then, please enjoy the new theme I installed, NOT (obviously) made by me. I like what they call a “Life Stream” — it’s like a newsfeed of (almost) everything in my social media life!

So I started school again, and school’s only been in session for 3 full days, and I feel like I’ve done the work or something of a whole month!! I’ve been really busy with the club I’m in. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it on here yet, but since last semester I’ve been very actively involved in a group on campus called CalPIRG. It stands for “California Students Public Interest Research Group.” The website is here if any of you are interested in finding out more generally what CalPIRG is. But the point is, I worked on a campaign called Campus Climate Challenge last semester. The point of this campaign is to raise awareness about global warming and to get the student body (as well as the faculty, etc.) to take action to help stop global warming. The Campus Climate Challenge campaign group (including me) all went to Washington D.C. this past November for the largest global warming conference in history, called Powershift 2007. Aside from that, we also held events on campus and have a lot of grass-roots organizing to put pressure on our politicians.

I did that all last semester. But now this semester, my friend and I have decided to run the hunger and homelessness campaign. Except we want to do it our way. The “CalPIRG way” has us do a “Hunger Cleanup” in which we can raise $10,000 dollars quite easily, but it just takes a lot of planning. We’re going to do it the “CalPIRG Way,” but we are also going to incorporate things we are passionate about as well. So I recently found out that in West Oakland (a city right next to Berkeley), there are no grocery stores nearby. So, the people who live there (lower-class) sometimes not only don’t have a car (therefore no means to go to a grocery store), but are forced to go to the nearest liquor store and buy liquor and chips..as food. That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. How could there not be a grocery store that is accessible to them? I don’t know how the mayor of Oakland or anyone else with an official position for that matter allows this to happen..so I’m going to see what I can do about it.

We’re also planning on doing service work for soup kitchens and shelters, but I want to do more than that. Maybe do a book drive to help promote adult literacy. Or work with the city of Berkeley (or put pressure on them?) to make sure the shelters/soup kitchens have enough funding.

All these ideas are still floating in the air, but I am so excited for this semester and what I can do. It’ll probably take up my life, but in the end, I know it’ll be totally worth it.