In her future work as a doctor of family medicine, Isabel Chen will be helping a diverse cross-section of people in her community, from the very young to the very old, throughout clinics, ICUs, and hospital operating rooms. So it only makes sense that her work as a social activist has been much the same.
Since 2011, Chen, 26, has been a driving force behind both Keep Safe, an initiative working to create a mobile panic button for sex workers on the Downtown Eastside, and The Reading Bear Society, a children’s literacy program.
And while those two concepts might seem quite far apart from each other and her life as a medical student, Chen says both ideas were born out of a singular passion she’s had since childhood.
“In high school,” says Chen, speaking by phone from Portland, where she was interviewing for a medical residency, “a lot of my identity and mission, and what I derived value and purpose from in life, was from developing a voice for those who might not otherwise have the courage or the confidence or the outlet to advocate for themselves.”
Initially convinced that her calling was to be a human rights lawyer, it wasn’t long into her time as an undergrad at Yale university that her professional focus shifted to medicine.
“I quickly realized that for me, one-to-one human relationships mattered a lot, and I wanted to be a part of peoples’ lived for many decades, in a healing, caring capacity.”
While at Yale, Chen concentrated her efforts on improving the health of disadvantaged populations. She worked as a sexual assault and rape counsellor and in a clinic for Iraqi refugees, and completed her undergraduate thesis in cultural anthropology on refugees’ reproductive health in the United States. Similarly, during graduate school, Chen tackled racial, ethnic, and immigrant disparities in intimate partner homicide in Massachusetts for her master’s thesis, while advocating for improved student mental health, sexual assault, and harassment practices with the university administration. She also served as president of the Women’s Leadership Initiative.
“I feel as happy and as confident, I guess, as the most marginalized and the most vulnerable and most disenfranchised of those I share a community with,” says Chen. “[I just feel] this really strong sense of collective responsibility for improving the wellness and outcomes of others.”
It was that sense of responsibility that led Chen, upon her return to her hometown of Vancouver in 2011, to start Keep Safe – bringing together a team of eight highly-skilled volunteers from across North America to answer the call from sex workers on the DTES for a GPS-based device that would allow them to summon help to their exact location in the event of violence.
It’s an ongoing initiative with Vancouver as the pilot city, and it was through that process that the idea for Reading Bear was indirectly sparked.
“I was very fortunate to work with focus groups for Keep Safe,” Chen explains, “and a lot of women on the Downtown Eastside, or even just general Eastside of Vancouver, have children who lack many of the basic necessities to help them thrive in life. Not just through nurturing and education, but just trough companionship and partnership.”
Reading Bear, founded by Chen and two UBC alumna, is a non-profit citywide early literacy initiative, focused on educating the “heart-mind.” The organization consists of parents, principals, teachers, advocates, and academics collaborating across communities to create healthier schools though peer reading visits and mentorship. More than 500 students participate in the program, the goal of which is to bring together youth and build strong cross-city relationships at a younger age.
“Reading Bear was just sort of a natural extension of how individuals can create a healthier community just by spending time, compassion, and sharing resources,” says Chen. “Education is one of the strongest gifts that we can share with each other. And it is one of the strongest gifts for individuals to take and excel in their lives.”
Chen, who was recently awarded the YWCA Young Women of Distinction Award, will have to go where her residency training takes her, but says no matter where she ends up, she will carry on her work back at home.
“I’m decently young,” she laughs, “and I just have a lot of time and energy and commitment that I’m willing to share.
“I think Canadians are inherently compassionate and giving and concerned with the wellbeing of their communities. That’s especially true in Vancouver,” she continues, “but I think sometimes it’s helpful to have certain individuals who can share their spark and can communicate that passion with others, to kind of mobilize people. So if I’m able to just be the glue or the conduit or help others and enable others to do what they would hope – what they would like – to see done, that’s really the goal.”
To find out how you can contribute your time, skills, or resources, go to TheReadingBear.ca and KeepSafeButton.org.
