Joscelyn Truitt to Continue Social Work Career at Tanzanian Orphanage

By Barbara Jester

      Joscelyn Truitt, graduating today with a B.S. degree from the Silver School of Social Work, spent the last year and a half working at Bellevue Hospital in the Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT), where she helped provide social services for individuals who have survived severe political and religious persecution in countries as far flung as Tibet, Chad, and Russia.
      “These are unbelievable people, with the most horrible stories,” says Truitt. “Yet they have survived, and are kind, connected to their roots, eager to learn, sympathetic,” she says.
      This was not an unusual pursuit for the young woman from Washington, D.C., who, as a student in that city’s public schools, was disturbed by the racism and separatism of the students, and worked on outreach programs in her teen years.
      At NYU she first became involved in Project HEALTH, a national volunteer organization that provides access to resources for lower-income families at a Family Health Desk in hospital emergency rooms. Besides working at the “desk,” she volunteered with teen mothers in a pilot program at Bellevue and at a soup kitchen in Harlem.
      Her work with PSOT has run the gamut from helping clients obtain Medicaid to referring them to legal aid and housing assistance.
      “We were with the clients from the beginning, so they knew they could trust us,” Truitt says, referring to herself and fellow Silver School student Jackie Espana, with whom she partnered.
      Although she will no longer be at PSOT, Truitt will continue her work with international populations. In August she moves to Tanzania, where she will work with fellow graduate Christopher Gates at the NGO he has established there, the Janada L. Bachelor Foundation for Children. The foundation operates a group home for abandoned or abused girls.