I have interviewed eight people so far, seven of them via phone, the eighth responded to the interview questions I posted here via e-mail. The organizations that I have talked to people about include the Georgetown campus of South Seattle Community College, Seattle Parks and Recreation, the metro YMCA, the Seattle Maritime Academy, Got Green and Puget Sound Sage. Most of these organizations have some type of internship program designed to provide education and awareness about livable wage jobs and careers for youth between 15 to 20 years who are from "disadvantaged" backgrounds. These programs focus on helping their students learn about many occupations that we tend to look down on, including construction, urban reforestation, health care and technology. I focused my interview questions with interviewees about the programs that these organizations have that provide some environmental education to youth along with raising their awareness of the new field of "green" jobs.
The responses that I got to my questions varied, especially when it came to discussing "green" jobs, and whether or not the organization considers that its program does have connections to the EPA superfund cleanup of the Duwamish river. Michael Woo, the founder of "Got Green", a new organization dedicated to working with youth from disadvantaged diverse communities, talked about "green" jobs from an organizing perspective. He stated that we shouldn't wait for anyone else to define what "green" jobs should be, communities of color need to define what we see as opportunities and to actively create them. His view contrasts to Melinda Nichols' perspective of working in job readiness programs. Melinda is skeptical about "green" jobs and feels that not everyone will have the "glamorous" ones that the media talks about such as working on solar panels. Given what I know about their backgrounds Melinda works for a government bureaucracy while Michael Woo speaks as a former community organizer and construction worker.
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Now that I've conducted several interviews with organiztions working in helping people who are from "disadvantaged" backgrounds obtain livable wage jobs, a couple of thoughts come to mind. Overwhelmingly the people whom I interviewed are Caucasian - of the seven women and two men I talked to, only one, Michael Woo is a person of color, he is an Asian American. Much like the interviewees whom I talked to for my Change inquiry this spring, the people do not represent the cultural diversity of the young teens and adults they seek to serve.
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Joyce