Juniors aim to educate students about homelessness

Six juniors decided that they were unhappy with the misconceptions about homelessness held by many students. They decided to take action and make a change.

Juniors Nina Nelson and Ashvita Ramesh learned how little they know about homelessness a year ago, when they volunteered at a shelter in Santa Clara.

“When I saw the conditions that these people were living in, I felt responsible to take action and help out,” Nelson said.

They did research on homelessness and were stunned at the results. While Santa Clara is one of the richest counties in the country, it also ranks fifth for the highest number of homeless inhabitants, about 7,631 people. Even more shocking was the fact that there is only one shelter in San Jose.

As part of their efforts, Nelson and Ramesh decided to film a documentary about the stories and struggles of the center’s inhabitants

They began the project in late October and welcomed the help of Meghan Shah, Christine Raj, Jennifer Chen and Ingrid Pan, all juniors. They talked to many of the people in the center and learned about their wishes, aspirations and stories.

“[There is a] stereotypical viewpoint that all homeless people became homeless in the same way, or that they all slacked off and didn’t bother to get a job,” Ramesh said. “The truth is that each person has such a different story, and it is absolutely wrong for us to group all of these people into one generic category.”

For Ramesh, the ignorance and misconceptions about homelessness are outrageous, and are the main reasons that she is so determined to create the documentary.

They want to showcase many of the similarities between the people in the shelter and those leading more secure lives.

“We plan to contrast the wishes of Saratoga High School students with the wishes of the people at the (shelter) and show students that there are bigger issues that we need to be thinking of,” Raj said.

The students are filming, editing and cutting the documentary in their free time, usually after school.

“If Leadership [could] grant our student body wishes [that] were sometimes so trivial, why can’t the whole school work together to give these homeless people their wishes?” Ramesh asked.  “We hope that by bringing more awareness to Saratoga, we can change people’s perspectives on homelessness.”

Through their experiences while filming the documentary, the girls have been able to empathize more with the inhabitants of the shelter.

“These people are lacking even the most basic things, such as socks, and they just don’t know how to get back on their feet,” Nelson said. “We really just want to help out the people who aren’t lucky enough to live in Saratoga.”