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Alison
Cohen goes global to do good
The
next time you hear anyone bitch about "do-nothing" youth, answer with
two words: "Alison Cohen."
From Africa, where she's taught school, and California, where she's
tutored kids to Cambridge, where she's starting at Harvard this fall,
Alison, from Washington, D.C., is one activist who is making her mark
while on the move.
Alison, 18, says her nomadic brand of activism begins at home. That's
not surprising, with a mom who's a doctor and a dad who works as a labor
educator and a consultant for nonprofits and unions.
"My mom's treated people from every walk of life," says Alison, "And
my dad switched to a job that pays less because he loves it more. To
me, loving your work is such a crucial part of having a good life. My
parents feel so passionately about giving back that I never thought
I would have a job I didn't love."
Politics and race relations are frequent topics at the dinner table.
Alison is the oldest of four Cohen kids. Her parents are observant Jews
and she credits the Jewish concept of "Tikkun Olam" (repairing the world)
as a large factor in their, and her own, worldview.
Washington, D.C. is well known as one of the most racially segregated
municipalities in the country. Her public high school was far more integrated
than the city, but she says kids still mostly stuck together according
to racial background, which left her feeling as if students were missing
out on each other's company and experiences.
"In my junior year I decided that people needed to step out of their
comfort zones a little, including me," recalls Alison. She went on to
co-found a committee with the goal of integrating her class through
fundraising for events and other activities.
"Recently someone on the street stopped me for
a survey and asked, 'What's the worst problem facing the world today?'
I said, 'It's that we view people as the groups they represent instead
of treating each person as an individual.'"
Discrimination is usually the topic of Alison's spoken word poetry,
which she performs at D.C. clubs and open mic nights.
Alison has gotten to know groups of people that most teens don't usually
have contact with. She joined a theater group for deaf and hearing teens
www.imaginationstage.org
as one of the few hearing members, and learned sign language through
immersion while performing folk tales from around the world. And part
of each summer in high school was spent as a counselor at a camp for
adults with mental disabilities in upstate New York. www.skylakecenter.org/summer
"My campers ranged from age 27 to 60, and they were my responsibility,"
says Alison. "It's the epitome of realizing that we're all dependent
on each other."
Alison calls herself an extrovert. After graduating high school, she
put the interpersonal skills she'd honed to good use during a year devoted
to community service. Last year saw her packing her bags for an extended
trip: first to Berkeley, California and then to Ghana, in West Africa.
In California, working at Berkeley High to help graduating students
write their college entrance essays, she ended up acting as a counselor
too.
"I had girls break down at a simple question like, 'So, tell me a little
bit about your family," recalls Alison. "I got to hear about people's
lives and then help them turn the jumble of words into an essay." The
experience has led her to consider a career as a high school principal,
among other possibilities.
Through Cross-Cultural
Solutions, an international program, Alison spent that winter and
spring in a little fishing village in southern Ghana. Never having taught
a day in her life, she found herself in front of a classroom of 10 to
18 year-olds, many of whom did not speak English. Through gestures,
translation help from a few precocious students, and whatever knowledge
of Ewe, the local dialect, she'd picked up, Alison and her class found
a common language.
"It was the hardest work I've ever doneÉ I miss the village so much,"
says Alison, who's considering going back to live with one family there.
"The whole experience really reaffirmed my belief that people are more
similar than they are different."
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