Believe it or not, Mass Ave. does not vanish past Central Square. Last Friday, I joined a group of Harvard students, all of us sporting pea-coats and toting L.L. Bean backpacks, at the Square's T stop and took the bus to the Boston Medical Center (BMC). We landed in neighborhood only miles from Harvard but worlds apart.

Welcome to the other end of Mass Ave. Here, at the crossroads of the South End, Roxbury and Dorchester, an entirely different set of sights and sounds as well as social ills await, a bit more pressing than those found in the pit.

My hosts, the volunteers with Project HEALTH (Help, Empower, Advocate and Lead through Health), stood out from the crowd in terms of age and skin color, yet they confidently entered the medical center's pediatric wing. The waiting room overflowed with a cacophonous sound--infants, children and their parents crying, laughing and speaking in both Spanish and English.

Project HEALTH's spring semester recruits toured the labyrinthine BMC.

The Project's founder and current director Rebecca Onie '96 led them past overworked nurses, doctors, public health advocates and social workers. The tour provides necessary training for these recruits, before they are faced with the daunting task of staffing the Family Help Desk--one of nine Project HEALTH programs run out of BMC.

Project HEALTH was founded only three years ago, but its programs currently involve over 150 Harvard students who directly serve BMC pediatric patients. All of the programs uniquely combine direct health care service and local public policy advocacy and activism.

Many of the patients need far more than an occasional vaccination or well-baby visit. In addition to critically ill children, BMC's patients desperately seek daily nutrition and hygiene education, information on vocational training, education, child-care, fuel assistance and food pantries.

The atmosphere at the Project HEALTH help desk is a far cry from the HASCS help desk located in the Science Center basement. A folding table adjacent to the pediatric waiting room, the help desk is decorated with brightly-colored, child-friendly posters and offers a variety of services. Volunteers, who attend the desk for two-hour weekly shifts, could be asked about local vocational training programs. "How do I become a nurse's assistant or a data entry specialist?" for example. Parents--many of whom are our age--might saunter over to the help desk to inquire about public camps and programs such as Head Start, the Department of Transitional Assistance and Child Care Choices of Boston.