How was it that I ended up in Fresno, California on a hot July day, videotaping the story of Michael, whose mother has schizophrenia and relies on state assistance to get by?
Stories of Health began with a conversation on a sidewalk in San Francisco in May. Walking back from a burrito at Dos Pinas, I sat down at just the right moment.
But first, some background:
While I've been reading Kos for a few election cycles, and have filled out many a petition and made the odd phone call, last year was the first time I actually got involved in politics.
It started out small, attending a Obama meeting in my neighbourhood to listen to a conference call. I don't remember learning anything from the call. But I knew I wanted to do something, so a week later, I found myself in the San Francisco office on Market Street, making a few phone calls (or at least trying).
From San Francisco, it was a big leap to fly out to Corpus Christi, Texas, to help out with the primary there. But from Texas, a week in Pennsylvania was a small step, and a weekend in Reno didn't require any convincing. It wasn't long after that I found myself at Obama headquarters in Chicago, where I helped build Vote for Change, our voter registration and polling place lookup tool.
While I travelled to five states in nine months, one thing I never got to do was attend a Camp Obama, the campaign's weekend-long community organizer training. Sure, I knew how to use VoteBuilder, and how to canvass, and how to phone bank. But I felt like I was missing something. So when the opportunity presented itself this spring, only five blocks from my apartment, I couldn't say no.
A big part of Camp O — and any similar training — is understanding the power of storytelling as an organizing tool. This is something Marshall Ganz taught, and something being passed on to a new generation of organizers.
Throughout the day, we listened to people tell stories about health care. These were powerful, moving, heart-wrenching stories. Stories about pregnancy; about cancer; about losing a home.
I knew immediately what we needed to do. If we're going to get health care reform in this country, people have to know how much of a need there really is — they need to know how awful the current system is. How much it hurts people. People like you and me.
You can debate statistics and dollar values all day long. But it was people's personal stories that moved us. We wanted to help move others (and the debate) about health care.
For the past two months, my friend Stanford and I been travelling California, talking to people about their experiences with the health care system. The result of this is Stories of Health.
As of today, forty-three people have opened up to us, sharing personal details — sometimes even things their friends don't know about them — because they know America's broken health care system needs fixing.
People like Madera, who survived cancer, but lost her insurance and is now uninsurable:
In the Bayview district of San Francisco, Diane told me about her son who died of leukemia:
Over the next few weeks, I'll post more of these stories in my diary.