Siobhan: Summer at BPI in Chicago

I’ve had the good fortune this summer to be back in my hometown of Chicago working at BPI - a wonderful public interest law and policy center that has, for almost 50 years, combined research, legal work, and community-based programming to tackle issues of inequity and social justice in both the Chicagoland and national arenas. When I joined the BPI (Business and Professional People for the Public Interest) team in May, their focal issues were housing and community development, public education, and political reform. I came on board at a particularly exciting time - the end of another school year wrapped up some of BPI’s public education programming for the summer; the organization took on a new set of projects tackling criminal justice reform; and discussions about police accountability heated up in the city government.

A typical day could be shaped by a field trip for preschoolers and kindergartners in the Altgeld Gardens neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side; a press conference and public hearing about community involvement in police accountability at Chicago’s City Hall; a training session for an early childhood language and literacy development program; or a tour of some of Chicago’s public housing developments. As one of seven interns, I’ve also gotten to enjoy brown bag lunches with BPI’s staff and lunchtime trips to some of Chicago’s many neighborhoods! When we’re not outside enjoying the city and working on our programs there, one of the areas I’ve gotten most involved with has been a program to prepare preschoolers for the transition to kindergarten - a perfect intersection, for me, of community development and psychology.

While the specific issues we address at BPI are different from those we’ve worked on with the Lwala Community Alliance through GlobeMed, I’ve noticed some crossovers between the two organizations. Both are committed to strengthening communities in ways that are driven by the community - not by some outside entity calling the shots. Like BPI, GlobeMed isn’t content with spurring change from behind closed doors; instead, the way I see it, both organizations want to get out of the office and implement their strategies, policies, and programs with communities first hand - whether that takes us to Chicago’s City Hall or to a classroom in Lwala. Seeing similarities like these is an encouraging reminder that there are loads of organizations out there devoted to confronting issues of social justice, and that we can all find ways to play a role in those changes.