by Kevin Nipal, Abigail Barima, Cire Kaba, and Licia Hooks of the Witt Seminar
Clinton students assemble to strategize in between visits to Assemblymembers José Rivera and Marcos Crespo.
We boarded the bus at 7:00 am on February 8 and headed to Albany in the hopes of persuading our State Assembly members to continue their support for our Montefiore school-based health center. Our clinic is important to us because without it we wouldn’t have free health care services that include treatment for chronic illnesses like diabetes and asthma, physical check-ups, mental health counseling, and dental care.
When we arrived in Albany after a three-hour bus journey, we first entered a conference room where hundreds of students, parents and teachers from throughout the state were already gathered to “speak out” about how vital their clinics were to the members of their school communities. This was an opportunity for all of us to listen to and be inspired by stories from second graders to high school students about how much they loved their own clinics, how they felt cared for and safe knowing that there were health care professionals right in their own schools.
DWC student Teddy Reyes delivers at the "Speak Out" in Albany.
Our primary task of the day was to speak to two of our own State Assembly members representing districts in the Bronx where students from DeWitt Clinton live. Montefiore Clinic Community Health Coordinator Jessica Moorman prepared us with speaking points and we were prepared to insert our own personal stories to convince lawmakers to vote to preserve the money that Governor Cuomo has already set aside in the budget for school-based health centers.
From left, students Kevin Nipal, Arieal Figueroa and Marc Perez try to get some straight answers from Assembly Member José Rivera.
We first met Assemblyman José Rivera and were very eager to hear him respond to us. As we presented our ideas and related our information to him however we felt that he didn’t really listen to us. It seemed impossible to get a straight answer from him. Fortunately, our second visit was to Assemblyman Marcos Crespo. We were very impressed to hear what he had to say. After we stated one idea to support our cause he went on to answer all of our questions without us even having to ask him. He covered everything that we wanted to know. He had us speechless and he helped us to understand not only how state government works but how his 85th district that includes Hunts Point was one of the poorest in the nation and how needy residents there had few health service providers and depended on clinics including those in schools to help meet basic health care needs.
This trip was a major success because we got to prove our point. On the long way back to the Bronx, we felt a sense of accomplishment. We were finally listened to and knew we helped to make a difference for our school.
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