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news
Inner city children
visit CSULB campus
By Diane Green
On-line Forty-Niner
Ninety eager Latino
children from low-income families in Santa Ana braved inclement
weather Saturday to take a field trip to Cal State Long Beach
to learn about the ins and outs of higher education.
The field trip
was coordinated by Eduard Vargas, academic program coordinator
at Latino Health Access, a privately funded community outreach
organization devoted to health promotion and disease prevention
in disadvantaged Latino neighborhoods of Santa Ana.
"What we want
to do is promote higher education. We want to push them to
go to the university," Vargas said. Most of the students
attending the field trip had never been to a college or university,
he said.
The children and
youth of the poor Latino neighborhoods LHA serve "think
that going to a university costs much more than they can afford,
so they don't even consider going," Vargas said. This
field trip showed them that a higher education and a better
way of life are well within their grasps if they choose to
reach for them, he said.
Vargas and his
colleagues seek to help poor Latino families, many of whom
came to America with dreams of a better life, but became stuck
in the lowest socioeconomic class due to a lack of education.
The field trip
began at 10:30 with classes in the Social Science/Public Affairs
Building about academics, college life and about how to apply
for financial aid. Then, in the cool, wet weather, they toured
the entire campus, stopping at the University Art Museum for
a docent-led tour of the current exhibit and then at the Engineering
and Computer Science building for a presentation by chemistry
professor Dr. Lloyd Hile.
University Outreach
and School Relations provided the speakers who led the classes,
as well as the tour guides for the campus tour. Two speakers,
Luisa Cortez and Shakeh Apkarian, led the youngest children
in talks about what they might want to study if they went
to college, and what kinds of careers they might like to have
when they grew up.
"A lot of
immigrants end up working two, three or four jobs to be able
to pay the mortgage or rent, and families sometimes have to
share houses," Vargas said. "The children, once
they graduate from high school, if they even finish high school,
need to go into the labor force to help support the family."
LHA, according to Vargas, "focuses on the holistic health
of the community, not just physical health, but social, economic,
mental and academic health." The term "academic
health" refers to the fact "that the higher your
educational attainment is, the better your health is going
to be."
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