Student
Profile: Matt McCoy, BA ‘08
“Committed to Serving Dalits of India”
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Matt
McCoy, BA '08, worked and volunteered his services through a non-profit
organization called Dalit Solidarity, Inc. |
“Social entrepreneur: someone who fundamentally changes the way society organizes itself and approaches social problems. Social entrepreneurs don’t just give a fish or teach how to fish-they revolutionize the fishing industry,” said Bill Drayton, President and founder of Ashoka, an organization committed to encouraging and rewarding social entrepreneurship.
On the path towards becoming a social entrepreneur, Matthew K. McCoy, BA ‘08, cites his work over the past three years with Dalit Solidarity, Inc., as a defining element of his academic career and personal development.
Dalit Solidarity, Inc. is a small, non-profit organization that works to promote human rights and social justice for the Dalits of India. This organization has provided Dalits with opportunities for education, healthcare, employment training and social development. These opportunities have been extended to women, revolutionizing the way many in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu view themselves and how others view them.
The hierarchy of the caste system in Indian society is set in a way that Dalits are so low on the scale that they are outside of the system or ‘outcastes,’ according to McCoy. “The caste system was outlawed in India in 1950, but Dalits continue to suffer discrimination in employment, education and health care, and remain relegated to the bottom level of Indian society,” McCoy says.
His first trip to India was in January 2004. He spent three weeks as a high school senior working in India with a small group of Dalit Solidarity volunteers teaching English and computer skills to the students at St. Patrick’s School. Dalit Solidarity established St. Patrick’s School, a boarding facility for Dalit students who range in age from 6 years old to 12 years old.
“I was totally immersed in a new culture and instantly transformed from a high school student into a teacher,” said McCoy. “I had never worked harder and had never been happier, and when my trip was over, there was no doubt in my mind that I was coming back soon, and for a much longer visit.”
McCoy enrolled at American University as an International Studies major in the fall of 2004, but decided to take a leave of absence during second semester, so that he could return to India and continue working for the non-profit organization.
In January 2005, two weeks after the tsunami struck Southeast Asia, McCoy returned to India with his younger brother and four other volunteers, spending the next two weeks providing disaster relief to tsunami victims along the coast. Dalit Solidarity, through its sister organization in India, Community Care Trust, provided food, clothing, cooking equipment and medical supplies to hundreds of victims living in the refugee camps.
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