现在,让我来告诉你们,那些旨在提高我们社区生活水平的职业——无论是帮助改善陷入困境的学校,还是建立课外项目,还是培训工人从事绿色工作——这些职位常常并不显眼,但是今天我们确实需要这些职业。解决我们国家所面临的最具挑战性的社会问题的方法并不一定单单来自于华盛顿。真正的革新经常始于那些致力于解决他们自己社区问题的个人。最好的主意来自他们。
And some pretty incredible social innovations have been launched by young people all across this world.
一些很有创意的社会革新已经由世界各地的青年人发动起来了。
Teach for American in this country is a great example. It was created by Wendy Kopp as a part of her undergraduate senior thesis in 1989. And now, as a result of her work then, more than6,200 corps members are teaching in our country's neediest communities, reaching approximately 400,000 students.
“为美国而教书”就是很棒的一个例子。该口号是文帝·科普1989年在其本科毕业论文里提出来的。由于她当时的努力,现在有超过6200名队员正在我国最贫穷的社区教书,他们教授的学生数量大概有40万名。
And then there's Van Jones, who recently joined the Obama administration, as a special adviser to the President on green jobs, Van started out as a grassroots organizer and became an advocate and a creator of "Green collar" jobs—jobs that are not only good for the environment, but also provide good wages and career advancement for both skilled and unskilled workers; jobs similar to ones big created right here at UC Merced as this green campus continues to grow.
还有凡·琼斯,他最近也加入了奥巴马政府,成了总统在绿色工作方面的特别顾问。凡开始时是一名民间组织者,后来成了“绿领”工作口号的创始者和倡导者——这种工作不但对环境有利,而且技术工人和非技术工人都会得到不错的工资待遇及职业生涯,这种工作类似于加州大学摩赛德分校随着绿色校园面积的扩大而创造出的工作。