Residents’ Journal’s video coverage of low-income Woodlawn youth and their advocates’, march and rally at University of Chicago Medical Center on April 21, 2011.

“U of C is Whack! Bring the Trauma Center back,” was the chant of protestors as they marched from 61st Street and Cottage Grove Avenue to the University of Chicago Medical Center at 58th Street and Maryland Avenue on April 21.

The protestors were stepping up their fight for “the human right to health care,” demanding action for a South Side trauma center. Members of “Fearless Leading by the Youth” also known as FLY, a division of Southside Together Organizing For Power (STOP), rallied outside the medical center, chanting “While the U of C ignores, we’re dying at their door.”

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Editor’s Note: The following story was written by a student in the Urban Youth International Journalism Program in partnership with Imagine Englewood If, a youth services organization based in that South Side neighborhood:

At an event about sex education at TEAM Englewood Community Academy High School February 17, I felt like any of the discussions could relate to me. But actually, the people talking were teens my age who got pregnant or contracted a deadly disease – HIV – or other Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).

Jalen Mitchell reads some important information. Photo by Tyreshia Black.

At the event at the school, 6201 S. Stewart St. in Englewood, a huge crowd in the audience listened to two female doctors, three people who had contracted HIV and teen parents. The doctors explained and compared HIV, AIDS, STDs, STIs and HPV. They explained that HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which weakens your immune system by destroying important cells called immune cells that fight against disease and infections. A virus can only reproduce itself by taking over a cell in the body of its host, which it invades and uses to make more copies of itself. The doctors also stated that HIV can hide for a long period in your body.

Two of the people with HIV said they didn’t even know that they had the disease. If they had taken a blood test sooner, they could have been treated and cared for better. One of them, Mr. London, has become an activist, talking to kids and families about his experience with HIV. He told us about ways HIV is spread and not spread. Read more »

Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program.

What do you think of when you are sitting in a dentist’s waiting room? Terror? Fear? Anxiety?

The first thing I think of when I envision a dentist is a big, rude, muscular and ugly person, man or woman, who wants to drill or yank out your teeth with a pair of pliers or other weird tools—that is, until I woke up to reality and overcame my fears, which I found to be all untrue.

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Advocates for universal healthcare celebrated passage of the Healthcare Justice Act of 2004, Illinois House Bill 2268, this past summer. The new legislation is designed to help the 3.5 million uninsured people in Illinois. On December 15, 2004, supporters of the bill held a candlelight vigil. At the candlelight vigil, State Senate President Emil Jones and State Representative William Delgado were the keynote speakers. Other speakers included Alivio Medical Center Director Carmen Velasquez and Health and Policy Research Group founder Dr. Quentin Young.

Illinois State Representative William Delgado played a major role in promoting and supporting the Healthcare Justice Act of 2004

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The Republicans and the Democrats are battling it out over Social Security. While everyone agrees Social Security must be reformed, Democrats deny there is a crisis, as alleged by President George W. Bush.

The President’s Pitch
President Bush has said that Social Security faces a $10 trillion unfunded obligation to beneficiaries. Trustees of the Social Security program have projected that by 2018 the program will owe more in annual benefits than the revenues generated by the payroll tax. They also say the program will be bankrupt by 2042.

In the 1950s, there were about sixteen workers paying for every Social Security beneficiary. Today there are about three, and eventually there will only be two workers per beneficiary, according to the President.
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The new Cook County Hospital, named after Cook County Board President John H. Stroger Jr. and located at 1901 W. Harrison St., opened its doors for service in December 2002. The new hospital covers 1.2 million square feet, or one-and-one-half city blocks in length, and replaces the old Cook County Hospital. The new hospital cost $551 million and was designed and built to be a more modern facility that would be better equipped to use up-to-date technology and equipment, according to Cook County officials.
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This is something that has been on my mind for some time. I am one of the millions of Americans that has to deal with the problem of not being able to afford some of my medicines.

Approximately a year and a half ago, the Sinai Health System started a new program called Sinai Senior services. They are offering their services free of charge to seniors living in the Chicago Housing Authority buildings and low-income dwellers in Chicago and surrounding communities, near or far, north, south, east, and west.

Men and women 55 years of age and older are welcome to participate in the Sinai Community Institute Program called Premier Years. You will have access to all the medical benefits and social activities they have.

The people living in CHA buildings and low- income neighborhoods are their first priorities. The healthy, sick and the reclusive. They want the seniors that are afraid to leave their apartments and the ones that fear standing on the corners waiting at the bus stops. Read more »