Cultural Spelunking

To atone for “being extremely insensitive” and “making light of a grave health threat” in my previous, I have decided to share with the world an exceptional bit of selfless social work which will blow your mind occurring on the Lower East Side called University Settlement.

I am so blown away by this place. University Settlement on the LES was the first settlement house in the country. It has been serving the LES for 123 years, offering everything from prenatal care and parenting workshops for moms to day care and after school programs to elderly social support. The institution has been a model for hundreds of others like it all over the world and has been making life better for people in New York every day it has been an institution. I interviewed Melissa Aase after taking a tour with my social work class, check out the Flip Clip:

I am in awe of this place. Melissa told us how they have services protecting underrepresented groups from unwarranted eviction by landlords trying to gentrify the LES, services for adult non-English speakers to learn for FREE. In a big way, settlement houses helped bring an organized, institutional system of support to the impoverished communities of NYC who need it the most. It is thanks to this support that NY and many other cities around the world are as culturally diverse and unique as they are.

If you live in NY, this institution directly effects the city around you as you know it. If you don’t live in NY, there is undoubtedly a settlement house near where you live now which has done the same. University Settlement is a historical and pioneering institution which always needs our help, like Melissa said, they always need interns, volunteer workers, or of course direct donation. But an intangible need of an institution to be successful is quite simply: buzz (I am a Culture and Communications major, trust me).

So check out their site, again is through this link www.universitysettlement.org, tell a friend, write your own blog about them, google search their name, subscribe to their newsletter, etc etc. Institutions like these are indispensible to the functioning of a city. They literally change the lives of those who need them.

And all it takes is you shouting out a facebook link to them to help the cause even a little bit. Though admittedly, money helps more.

This post warrants a new tag category: world saving, I shall call it. Appropriately, I should say.