This Week in MVP: Project Leader Featured

Great news! Word just came in that our project leader, Amanda Matson, was selected for the first ever Society for Community Research and Action Featured Student Contest! That's more prize money that can go into funding the Mobile Voice Project - providing bus passes for our participants!

This Week in MVP: Team Updates!

A big welcome to our new research assistants for this summer and fall and a big welcome back to our returning assistant! You are already sharing so many innovative ideas on how to promote and strengthen the Mobile Voice Project!

This Week in MVP: New Partner!

The Mobile Voice Project team is excited to start sessions this week with clients at the Helen Wright Center of Urban Ministries of Wake County! A big thanks to staff and clients there for welcoming us last night. Looking forward to hearing more about the clients' experiences related to mobility at tomorrow night's session!

This Week in MVP: Transitioning

The spring semester is coming to a close, and with it, the MVP Team is transitioning.  We will be having a couple of our research assistants move on and a new research assistant starting with us this summer.  A big thanks to four fabulous Research Assistants this past fall and spring! The Mobile Voice Project would not be as far along today if it hadn't been for all of your hard work!

This Week in MVP: Awesome Undergraduates!

Congratulations to our team of undergraduate research assistants for their winning proposal to receive an NCSU College of Humanities and Social Sciences Undergraduate Research Award for $375 each, or a total award of $1500! You all have earned it! For the award, over the next 6 weeks, students will be trained on various qualitative research techniques and then have a chance to implement them to analyze the photos and audio from our MVP sessions. Can't wait to see what they learn from all of our participants' stories...

Notable News in Mobility: The Right to Transportation

When the average American thinks about their own transportation experience, we usually think of how to get around traffic or how to cut a few minutes off our daily commute. We usually don’t have to consider whether or not we will have the ability to get to where we need to go; rather we just focus on how to make it a more enjoyable experience. But for many Americans, like those participating in the Mobile Voice Project, simply getting from place to place can be a daily struggle. This article by Wired asserts that transportation is should not be a privilege few enjoy, but a civil right to which all have access.  Every citizen should have the right to adequate transportation because “access to transportation is key to connecting the poor, seniors and those with disabilities to jobs, schools, health care and other resources. It is essential to widening opportunities for all.”  Without adequate transportation options opportunities that should be open to all are being withheld from those most in need. 

The women we work with everyday as a part of the Mobile Voice Project are among those with inadequate access to opportunities that could lead them to independence and an equal opportunity at financial security. I think it’s time for us as a community to come together and take the perspective of those less able to access the things in life many of us take for granted. When the federal government allocates 80 percent of its transportation funding to highways, and Americans in the lowest 20 percent income bracket spend up to 42 percent of their annual income on transportation, the way funds are allocated needs to change to assisting transportation-disadvantaged populations. As a community we can pressure our elected officials to make these changes. Let your voice be heard!

Sources: WIRED

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Author: Nicholas Flickinger

Photo of the Week: "Speedy Service"

Speedy Service

This week one of our MVP participants submitted a picture of the information booth at Moore Square Station in downtown Raleigh.

The participant who took this photo listed this booth as a 'boost' to her transportation situation - something that helps her get around town. In her own words:

"The information desk is a boost because it allows you to buy passes in advance and to see what bus connects with other buses. The service is speedy."