CCW

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Welcome to CCW

The Center for Community Well-being (CCW) is an interdisciplinary, university-community collaborative between the University of California, San Diego and non-profits, schools, community centers, and residents of southeast San Diego's Fourth District. Its primary goals:

Improve education, health, safety, economic and social development in underserved communities of southeast San Diego;
Provide opportunities to improve graduate and undergraduate education through fieldwork in the community;
Research, develop, prototype and deploy affordable, accessible and culturally appropriate technologies in the context of the target community; and
Engage local communities in collaborative projects that cut across existing community institutions.

By engaging with the southeast San Diego community in a collaborative fashion, CCW aims to address what is widely agreed to be a central barrier to community well-being: the long-standing and deeply entrenched failure of local entities to communicate and collaborate with each other to confront challenges that can only be overcome through large-scale collaboration. CCW cuts across academic disciplines to serve as a catalyst for local community organizations by offering scientific and educational programs that previously worked in isolation. Through CCW, students, faculty and community members work together to define challenges and create solutions that are locally relevant and valued, so that all parties involved can work toward a collective goal and vision.

Diamond District

The focus of CCW activities is on southeast San Diego, in the heart of the city's Fourth District. The gem-shaped Diamond District is a business improvement zone that is home to 88,000 residents. It includes the communities of Chollas View, Emerald Hills, Lincoln Park, Mountain View, Mount Hope, North Encanto, Oak Park, South Encanto, Valencia Park and Webster (see map).

The Diamond District is a low-income neighborhood plagued by gang violence, few employment opportunities, low-achieving schools and little health care. The majority of single-parent families suffer from poor diets and poor health due to lack of adequate health care. These conditions affect the area's youth - requiring a comprehensive approach to improving the wellness of neighborhood residents. CCW commits the intellectual and material resources of UC San Diego to a collaboration that will address neighborhood safety, school improvement, and family health.