Solutions for Basic Human Needs: Social Innovation vs. Policy Change

People are stranded around the world due to the current refugee crisis. Individuals are unable to make a paid living and the education of children from developing countries is affected by not being able to afford the cost of seeing an eye care specialist. Students from first-generation and underprivileged backgrounds cannot afford tutors. These are only a few of the policy problems around the globe. The three articles I selected from this week’s theme are based on my concentration and interests in domestic policy, specifically education policy, homelessness, and health policy. Access to education, shelter, and health care are innovatively demonstrated by Salman Khan with Khan Academy, by the IKEA Foundation through the solar-powered shelters for refugees, and by Professor Joshua Silver’s self-adjustable eyeglasses. The individuals presented in these articles have revolutionized solutions that are key elements of the global and United State’s political agenda.

I was immediately pleased by the idea that education fell under ‘basic human needs’ for this week’s theme. This may seem obvious; however, during this time in America, citizens are being stripped of basic human necessities. My particular passion in education policy originates from being a first generation student and my experience working with non-profit organizations that target schools with 96% Latino students and 90% of low-income families.

While there is a history behind my passion for public service and education policy, other policy issues are just as intriguing to me. In the Public Policy and International Affairs Program, I studied the intersection of race, health disparities, and Medicaid expansion in in states with the most prevalent health disparities. In a group project, I helped develop and publish Expanding Access, Narrowing Gaps: Health Disparities, Rural Black Populations, and Medicaid Expansion in Georgia. Studying health policy was fascinating, as I began to comprehend that racial disparities connect to not only education policy but also to many other policy issues.

In terms of change in health policy, education policy, or any other sector the first and utmost solution that is pushed forward in academia is policy reform. The research I conducted in regards to Medicaid expansion covered funding in terms of solutions (again, policy changes). It is my first time being exposed to the study of innovation, social innovation, and enterprise. Class lectures, readings, and the study of social innovation, in general, lead me towards hope that social innovation can assess basic human needs. Observing simple innovations presented in the readings that make vast changes and differences around the world has taken a turn on how I visualize reform other than referring to policy reform. In terms of change, however, to what extent is social innovation enough and therefore to what extent should we focus on social innovation as future policy professionals?