Franklin Students and RU's SOCIO Work Together to Map Local Community

A group of Franklin Township students are involved in a community partnership with a Rutgers University group, working to map their surrounding communities in the hopes of bettering them.

IMSOCIO started when the Rutgers University program SOCIO (Scholars Organizing Culturally Innovative Opportunities) became involved with the Spanish Club at Franklin High School, and began a partnership with Wansoo Im, who specializes in community mapping.

Over the summer, IMSOCIO has been working on a number of community research projects, including a sidewalk mapping project.

This past Saturday, the students had the opportunity to present some of their findings to Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula on the campus of Rutgers University.

For the sidewalk inventory, students walked the sidewalks leading to Franklin High School and logged sidewalk and cycling conditions there with map points and pictures. The resulting online map is meant to assess the overall conditions of those areas for pedestrians and cyclists.

According to the IMSOCIO website, the maps provide a list of information for local elected officials to have at their disposal when considering improvements, and use it to alert the community when improvements are made.

According to SOCIO, the overall goal of the project was not just the maps. SOCIO's purpose is to mentor Hispanic students in academics, community involvement and personal growth.

Enrique Noguera, SOCIO Director, said a goal of the program is to ensure that high school students are informed of the different ways they can make changes in their community.

The program could work in high schools all over New Jersey, he said. However, the group is still searching for ways to sustain it, he said.

Chivukula praised the results of the project and urged them to stay involved with their community.

A former Franklin Township mayor, Chivukula said the project had potential to solve problems.

Sidewalk conditions were always an issue while he was mayor of the township, he said. 

One student asked Chivukula how to start the process of effecting change.

Chivukula said they already had - start by using the findings of the project and reach out to local officials to begin dialogues about what to do with those findings.

"Once you start...you will find the answers," he said.

Often, the hardest part is getting started, he said.

For more information on the IMSOCIO mapping project, visit www.imsocio.org.