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PBH: Finding More To Life Than Machiavelli

This semster, three new committees are being added to the existing eleven.

Last year's steering committee saw a need to co-ordinate placements dealing with the problems unique to women, and to investigate new volunteer possibilities to aid women in the community.

"There were issues particular to women that were just not getting dealt with. For instance, the whole problem of women prisoners," Manos says.

The recently formed Environmental Action Committee is another example of a group designed to deal with a previously unmet need. The third new committee, Community Health, is a revamping of the Community Medical Program, which placed volunteers as orderlies in hospitals. The new program, instead, will work primarily in community health clinics, preventitive medicine, and alternative health care options.

Whether these social reform committees will succeed as well as the ever-popular "Big Brother" and "Big Sister" social services is a matter for speculation.

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Despite the large number of volunteers at PBH, the turnover rate is estimated to be as high as 50 per cent. Manos attributes the drop-out figures to volunteers' other academic and extracurricular activities. "I haven't known many people who dropped out for other reasons," she says.

"I was doing one-to-one big sister work...I'm not doing it now because the time commitment was just too great...I have two part-time jobs, and I do House Committee and intramural sports, and if I didn't see my little sister at least once a week I felt I would be cheating her..." notes Linda Frescas '80.

Most volunteers who do stay in PBH often feel frustrated. "You're overwhelmed by your own helplessness," Creighton says. But the volunteer is frequently so angered by unjust conditions that he stays anyway. "It's great to have personal outrage, because that's what keeps you going," he adds.

Ujifusa says she thinks most people at PBH view their work "unassumingly." "I can't go into Roxbury saying I'm the savior," she comments. "Any arrogance you have doesn't last long," she adds.

When Creighton goes to his volunteer work, he does not say he is from Harvard. "It's not that I'm ashamed--it's just that the fact I'm from Harvard is not relevant," he explains.

"It doesn't matter out there if you've read Machiavelli," Ujifusa adds.

The University stopped giving PBHA funds in 1972, so the organization's major source of income is the alumni drive, which accounts for $12,000 of the $40,000 yearly budget. PBH is the only student organization not responsible to the dean of students but to the president and the fellows of the University.

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The volunteers at PBH experience both exhilaration and pain in the course of their work.

"If you get a Din Gov 30 you don't feel like your whole life has crumbled, because you know you're out in the real world, doing something important," Ujifusa says.

Manos's idealism is balanced by a recognition of PBH's limitations. "Sure we help in the community, but it's only a drop in the bucket. How much can we do? That's a good question," she says.

One thing many PBH volunteers have noticed is the feeling they have when they return to Harvard after a day in the community. Ujifusa describes the feeling as "amazing. You realize that this (Harvard) isn't the whole world."

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