Social Change Agent Diana

My goals here, in this position is not to find my replacement, it is to make the job self-funding because of its value. The person after me should be so valuable they are well-paid. The job should be open to the program graduates from which AmeriCorps helps, but teach them they are worth more than what I am being paid as a volunteer to my country.

This job is tough, for several reasons and I’m having a hard time adapting to Dubuque as well.

First, the program I am working on is really cool. We have some great partners and are doing some great work here. The more I look into what is going on here, the more questions I have.

I know how to get the answers, but I am not allowed or don’t have some of the resources to do the job.

For example, there is currently a job website that Iowa Works and the Chamber of Commerce work together to run. It is pretty comprehensive and there are job shortages in some areas, so the community college looks at it and trains folks to get the jobs that are needed. But they have no idea if is it working. It would be easy to find out if it was working and what the barriers still were to folks using the site. We could get a hold of the folks who are registered with the site. All we need to do is call a statistically significantly number of them and find out more information. We could also go the employers (or phone call them) and see if it is working for them. We also want to see the difference between the folks the hire and the folks they don’t so we can tailor programming to people coming from poverty to be more prepared for the workforce. I would just interview both parties. We already have their contact information. But while this would be incredibly valuable to all the partners in the program, and I totally could make 10k phone calls to the folks and very or little cost, it isn’t really in my VAD and it would distract from the other programs. I would have to have access to the partner’s database and/or have a contact list of employers,currently held by a partner. They don't agree with me of how easy it would be.

Secondly, I’m very annoyed how the AmeriCorps program is being used here. I saw some of it at PSO, but here in Dubuque, it is also very clear.

One of the barriers to folks ever getting ahead is finding a living wage job. They are available here in Dubuque. They are even available at the skills level people here already have. The problem is that people don’t know their own value. Lets put it this way, Americorps does a good thing by often hiring folks who may have been in a program they helped with. This seems like a good thing, but it is also mis-used. The pay for the job is not paying people what they are worth. Internal hiring continues the “I’m lucky with what I get” mentality instead of teaching people in the program they are worth more. I’ve met 4 people in Dubuque and several at PSO who were former participants in the programs that VISTA serves. They are willing to take poverty wages because it is their first opportunity to do something different, not always their best opportunity. For many of the people I met, they are worth more than whatever our minimum wages turn out to be per hour. Instead of creating the system change to make more jobs for folks, it is internal hiring. You can’t expect someone who knows nothing different to make something different. Internal hiring/promotion can be good sometimes, but it is also potentially eating the seed corn. AmeriCorps and the VISTA program won’t succeed if they feed off of the clients. Everyone needs a chance, but we should be blazing trails, not pulling a train.

Enough with my rantings.