Resident Physician Earns National Recognition for Youth Empowerment Program
Kai Daniels participates in a ropes course as part of the week-long Summer Empowerment Academy initiated by UCSF resident physician Risha Irby-Irvin.
A UCSF resident has been selected for a prestigious national award recognizing her outstanding community service contributions.
Risha Irby-Irvin, MD, who is in her third year of UCSF’s Primary Care/General Internal Medicine Residency, was honored by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) for her work in designing and implementing the Summer Empowerment Academy, a program that offers support and guidance to teenagers from low-income communities and seeks to inspire them to pursue higher education.
Irby-Irvin started the program with her husband Nathan, an emergency medicine resident at Highland Hospital in Oakland, to address some of the social determinants of health, she said.
“I work at San Francisco General Hospital, and every day I see the effects of poverty, violence and a lack of educational opportunities,” Irby-Irvin said in a recent phone interview.
“With our program, we decided we wanted to try to catch kids as they were about to start high school — a time when they get to go in with somewhat of a clean slate,” she said. “We were looking for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds who might be on the wrong track, but who showed a lot of promise.”
From left, Robert Dickerson, Dijon Shepard and Jamil McQuinn join Summer Empowerment Academy staffer Taniqua Alexander, right, and other program participants on a field trip to the set of the TV show CSI.
To make her vision a reality, Irby-Irvin decided to team up with a Los Angeles-based nonprofit, the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation, which provides financial resources and practical experience to underserved youth to help them pursue their academic or professional field of interest.
After raising an initial $20,000, the Summer Empowerment Academy kicked off last summer in Los Angeles with a one-week session that included field trips, a climbing course, business classes, and visits from speakers such as a star of the popular television show “CSI” and a group of former LA gang members. A total of 26 incoming ninth-graders took part in the academy free of charge.
Since then, the participants have met with Summer Empowerment Academy volunteers on a monthly basis, and the volunteers are working to help them apply for other summer programs for 2010.
“A lot of these kids have never been outside of LA,” said Irby-Irvin, who travels south as often as she can to take part in the follow-up sessions. “Our goal is to get them out of the city next summer. Those who don’t leave will probably come back [to the Summer Empowerment Academy] to serve as youth mentors to the new kids.”
The 26 inaugural Summer Empowerment Academy participants pose alongside members of the program’s volunteer staff.
The program is still fundraising for next year, but Irby-Irvin said it is on track to double in size.
The AAMC Community Service Recognition Award is presented each year to a resident physician whose efforts to improve his or her community have gone “above and beyond the rigors of [his or her] residency training,” according to the organization’s website.
Irby-Irvin will receive her award at the AAMC’s annual meeting in Boston on November 7. In addition, the organization will make a $1,000 contribution to the Manifest Your Destiny Foundation.
Photos by Akello Stone
Related Links:
AAMC Community Service Recognition Award
The Manifest Your Destiny Foundation