VISTA Opportunity in Sunny Florida
VISTA Opportunity available at:
Miami Dade College – Center for Community Involvement/Medical Center Campus Miami-Dade County, Florida
The Sponsoring organization for this project is Miami Dade College’s (MDC) Center for Community Involvement (CCI). CCI is responsible for all service-learning and America Reads activities at MDC’s seven campuses. The goals of the service-learning program include: enhancing classroom learning, meeting community needs, and fostering civic responsibility.
CCI coordinates all placement and on-going support, and holds regular training sessions for faculty and for the community agency supervisors who host the college’s service-learning students. In addition, the Center administers the nation’s largest community college America Reads program, and collaborates with Miami-Dade County Public Schools to lead an eight member “South Florida America Reads Coalition.”
MDC is the largest and most diverse institution of higher learning education in the United States and the City of Miami is one of the nation’s poorest cities. MDC’s service-learning program works with several hundred non-profits addressing myriad issues related to poverty, campus-community partnerships, and community prosperity. This is primarily achieved by forming partnerships with non-profit groups and working with faculty to incorporate course relevant service into their teaching. This particular project will focus on the College’s Medical Center Campus.
The Medical Center Campus is one of MDC’s seven campuses and is a national leader in nursing, allied health education, and service-learning. The Campus offers 15 Associate in Science degree programs and 12 short-term certificate programs in nursing and the allied health professions and enrolls more than 2,800 credit students, 82% of whom are minority, with a median age of 30.6. The Campus prides itself not only on helping these students achieve academic and vocational success as much-needed health care professionals in one of the poorest counties in the United States, but also on preparing them for a life of active citizenship in which they understand their obligation to use their education and skills for the common good.
This VISTA project will help increase the quality and quantity of service-learning on the Medical Center Campus, and will help create an off-site health clinic at a nearby homeless shelter (the Miami Rescue Mission). Specific projects will include helping approximately 50 dental hygiene students find and implement service-learning projects each year, helping approximately 15 nursing faculty and more than 400 students in the community health Nursing course with all aspects of their required service-learning projects. The VISTA project will also help with myriad other campus community partnership activities including helping the Campus organize and implement a major county-wide free health care, helping the nursing students and faculty expand the “disease of the month” community education program, and assisting with the health opportunities outreach program that brings at-risk minority high school students on campus to learn about health-related careers.
The VISTA will receive extensive training in the theory of mechanics of service-learning. They will also spent a great deal of time studying and familiarizing themselves with the adjacent low-income Overtown community, and the many non-profit agency partners of the Medical Center Campus. The VISTA will also provide direct support to approximately 20 faculty in the Allied Health and Nursing programs as they integrate service-learning into their courses. All of the projects and activities will directly relate to the Project Work Plan with the ultimate result being a stronger, more institutionalized service-learning program, along with hundreds of students learning about the value of service and civic engagement, and countless community members and non-profit agencies being served.
Requested AmeriCorps*VISTA Member skills and qualifications:
- A two-year of four-year college degree is preferred
- Experience in the area of social work, community organizing, health care
- Experience working with people from diverse backgrounds
- Experience interacting with residents of low-income communities
- Strong interest and experience in community service/volunteer work
- Strong work ethic - Self motivated - Initiative, reliability, and ability to work with others
- Familiar with a college/academic environment
The benefits for being an AmeriCorps VISTA include basic health insurance, optional life insurance, assistance with day care for those volunteers that have children, and a $4,725 post-service education award or a post-service stipend of $1,200. VISTAS in Miami get a stipend of about $800 a month to cover living expenses.
To apply, contact: Joshua Young at (305) 237-7477