Darsh Patel

CESL Program: Community Scholars Program

Major: Biochemistry

I chose to join CESL because of my interest in going to do some type of advocacy work. I wanted to broaden my interests beyond just science and see how I can contribute to a different part of advocacy, and luckily, this time it was mutual aid, which I found the most interesting. I think that with our work in the Mutual Aid Project that’s coming up in the next semester, I can probably leave a big impact on this campus and overall the community here because of it.

In this first semester of the Community Scholars Program, it’s more research based based on the topic area you’re doing. When I was placed in the mutual aid group, I was placed with three other students, and we did some researching on mutual aid itself and just began starting to interact with the Mutual Aid Project, going to some of their events with Thingswap, and then meeting people within the Mutual Aid Project was interesting. Actually, this Saturday, we have a retreat, so we’re going to formally introduce ourselves and start becoming active with them. What we’re kind of hoping to do next semester is try and set up a time bank over here on campus, which is I think a really great way to show that you can have an exchange of goods and services without relying on money and are creating a more equitable transaction.

I think Thingswap was kind of my eye opener to how we can do alternative methods of transactions or exchanges of services, and it kind of started to finally answer my questions as to what an alternative approach can actually look like. Going to Thingswap on these Fridays is interesting to see the amount of people that are coming, bringing, taking things, but also about the things that we’re discussing over there. Even at Thingswap, it’s not just people coming to drop stuff off. We’re talking about issues, talking about each other’s days, just chatting. I remember one time, the Multidisciplinary Psychedelics Club was there. I was talking to them about the narcan that was there, which as an EMT, that’s something that I could use in my scope of practice, so I was talking to them about that and also learning more about what the Multidisciplinary Psychedelics Club does with harm reduction, so it’s kind of a great place for an exchange of ideas, and that’s why I felt really welcoming into that kind of atmosphere, and I really enjoyed that.

Being part of CSP made me think about how I want to work in my field in the future. I’m interested in the health sciences, and prior to CSP, I didn’t know how to bridge my gap in advocacy work and health care. I wanted to figure out a way that this could be possible, and it made me start exploring other options, especially things we were learning in class, so things like worker cooperatives was something I was unaware of prior to this class and maybe establishing one would be really interesting because I don’t think there has been one specifically within a physician’s practice. I’ve been trying to look into it, there might be one, but I feel like establishing that and grounding that in my future work is very important, as well as continuing things that concern mutual aid, continuing time banking, sharing that experience, making more people aware of that as I go into other fields, to build more connections with that, and then also make those kind of events or activities more influential.