Do you need a one-credit elective?
Are you interested in community organizing and health equity?
Do you care about farmworker justice and health?
This winter, there will be two courses offered to all health sciences students that focus on health equity, social justice, and
community based learning and action: the common book course, UCONJ 532, and health equity and community organizing, UCONJ 624. Please
read below:
UCONJ 523: Making Science Public: Improving Farmworker Health through Community-Engaged Research and Storytelling
This year’s common book Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies by Seth Holmes, opens up important discussions on topics like structural violence,
farmworker justice, and how we can participate in proactive responses that improve farmworker health. Through this course, health
science students will engage in collaborative community-based projects that will reduce the harm of groundwater toxins, which is an
ongoing issue facing communities in the Yakima Valley. This course meets six Monday evenings over the course of the quarter
(5:30-7:20) and will include a day-trip to Yakima (TBD). This visit to Yakima will include a tour of a Confined Animal Feeding
Operation (a major source of groundwater contamination) and an opportunity to meet local community activists who are working on this
issue. Email Kelsen Caldwell caldweka@uw.edu for more information or to request an add code.
UCONJ 624: Health Equity and Community Organizing
The second course, health equity and community organizing (UCONJ 624) will be taught in collaboration with Sound Alliance and will help
students to learn the skills to develop effective, winnable community organizing campaigns that produce greater health equity. The
goal of this course is for students to be able to work upstream to address the social determinants of health—so we don’t have to keep
doing direct service and charity forever without ever addressing the reason why needs exist in the first place. The course meets
Thursdays (from 5:30-7:20) and the bulk of the coursework is oriented toward actually getting involved in a Health Equity Circle
campaign so you can apply your new skills and frameworks. If you’re interested, you can email David Fernando somserve@uw.edu for more
information or to request an add code.
