Lifting Latina Voices Initiative Wishes You All Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
We want to thank all of our community partners, staff, and friends for their wonderful effort in supporting what we do to impact lives everyday! We look forward to further success and memories in the year to come!
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Program Updates - Meet the Team! It has been an exciting and challenging year for the Lifting Latina Voices initiative. The program experienced some level of uncertainty and staff changes towards the end of the summer. Dian Alarcon, the LLVI program coordinator decided to move to Florida to be closer to her family and where she joined National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. We are proud of Dian and wish her the best in her new chapter in Florida. However, Losing Dian pushed back the LLVI timeline a little bit, especially because soon after she left the LLVI program assistant, also left. But each challenge is also an opportunity, so FWHC, recently hired Carmen Garcia to lead and coordinate the LLVI program. The program is right on track with Carmen. She is ensuring Lifting Latina Voices Initiative continues delivering its objectives with excellence, professionalism and creativity. In addition to hiring Carmen, LLVI added two other new members to the team- Brittany Bromfield, the program assistant, and Constanza Vasquez, a promotora! To read more on Carmen, Brittany, and Constanza, click on the link below: Read More on Carmen, Brittany, and Constanza! The LLVI Team is made up of 6 women in all! Four Promotoras (Luz Restrepo, Constanza Vasquez, Diana Garz�n, and Constanza Castano), a program assistant (Brittany Bromfield), and the program coordinator (Carmen Garcia). The program also works closely with Emily Lemon an LLVI volunteer and graduate student from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, who dedicates her valuable knowledge, skills, and time to the program. Emily is currently assisting with the development of the new program educational curriculum for the promotoras. The curriculum will be the blue print for the training of the promotoras and the educational workshops that they lead. The curriculum has been designed to serve the special learning and cultural needs of the Latino Community in Atlanta. It will be available both in English and Spanish. The LLVI team is focused on the goals of the program to work together to continue educating and advocating to reduce Latino reproductive health disparities. The team is committed, enthusiastic, and looking forward to the year ahead for even more big accomplishments in the near future! Read more to view what we've been doing in the last few months!
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Community Outreach In the past few months, LLVI was an active participant in several outreach events and health fairs like the Binational Health Week (October 15th-18th), Hispanic Health Fair (October 19th), and the Domestic Violence Awareness Week (October 28th-November 1st) at the Mexican General Consulate. These health fairs provided health exams like glucose, blood pressure, flu shots, and STD screenings FREE OF CHARGE! These health and resource fairs were also a chance for people in the Latino community to become aware of other services and organizations that can meet their needs. These fairs bring critical information and services to Latinos in Atlanta that they would otherwise not get, or have extreme difficulty getting. LLVI tabled all three events. We were able to reach out to over 100 people at Binational Health Week, 152 people for Domestic Violence Awareness Week, and over 400 individuals at the Hispanic Health Fair! This leads us to a grand total of over 650 people received vital information from LLVI and about LLVI, Feminist Women's Health Center, and how we can help them and their families. LLVI is currently developing a database system with all the contacts they made at these community events to serve as a referral system. LLVI has already gotten calls asking for referral contacts for interested clients in need of health and social services!
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Workshops & House Parties
Because the topics of sex and reproductive health is often avoided and neglected in the Latino community, many teens do not talk to their parents or other informed adult leaders or mentors in their lives about sexual/ reproductive health and healthy relationships. The promotoras give workshops to inform and educate those in the community about topics such as Sexually Transmitted Diseases, how parents can talk to their kids about sex, healthy relationships, and bodily changes during puberty. These "charlas", or talks, serve as an open space for people to become informed and to ask questions about these topics that are often not talked about in the Latino community due to lack of awareness and cultural taboos. As a result, this lack of awareness often leads to grave outcomes such as unplanned pregnancies, the spread of STDs, overall lack of general knowledge of the body and health, etc.
During this period, the promotoras all reached out to a total close to 2,000 people (1,473 from the workshops and 93 from hosting House Parties)! This means that all these people became more aware of vital information about their health, healthy lifestyles and relationships, and how to talk to their children about sexual and reproductive health.
LLVI is also holding workshops at the Colombian Consulate! Since December 13th, the promotoras are now leading these workshops every Friday to give more awareness on reproductive and sexual health.
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Media
LLVI Featured on Univisi�n!
The LLVI continues to make exceptional progress with its media connections through Univision, Canal 34 and other new magazine partners. On November 26th, LLVI was featured on Univisi�n! Kiarriana Parisi of Univision video recorded and interviewed the promotoras and Carmen Garcia, the LLVI Coordinator about the program and what LLVI does in the metro Atlanta community. The special feature highlighted the reproductive and sexual health disparities that specifically impact the Latino Community and how LLVI works in the community to close the health disparity gap by empowering Latinos in Atlanta through providing invaluable education and information about prevention. Follow the link below to view the clip!
LLVI Feature on Univision
Saludify Magazine Interviewed LLVI Program Coordinator Carmen Garcia:
The LLVI program was also featured on Saludify, a website dedicated to providing news and resources on Hispanic health. In the interview, the LLVI coordinator emphasized the importance of reproductive/sexual health education and awareness for Latinas, as many do not have easy access to vital information and services to assist in this disparity. This is why LLVI, the only program in Georgia that specifically focuses on and reaches out to Latinas, have the Promotoras, the heroes of the program to provide culturally sensitive education "to bridge a gap and normalize conversations about health topics that were considered taboo" (C. Garcia). To read more about this interview, click here to read the interview.
More upcoming Media Features:
LLVI anticipates having a regular educational Radio program at the 1080 a.m. local radio- More on this to come next year!
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Fundraising
Emory Rollins School of Public Health student organization HOLA (Health Organization for Latin America) organized a Sex Trivia Fundraiser in benefit of LLVI! The event was a big success! The students were able to fundraise over $1,000 for LLVI! A HUGE Thank you for HOLA! To learn more about HOLA, you can visit their website at: www.sph.emory.edu
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Food for Thought
Did you know????
According to the CDC, in 2008, the birth rate for Hispanic adolescents was approximately 5 times the rate for Asian/Pacific Islander adolescents, 3 times the rate for non-Hispanic white adolescents, and somewhat higher than the rates for non-Hispanic black and American Indian/Alaska Native adolescents. Read more on Latino health on the CDC Website.
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What's Happening in the Latino Community?
Photo by John Bazemore of the Washington Times
On November 19th, undocumented immigrants blockaded an Atlanta federal office to stand up for the rights of undocumented immigrants and their families, and to urge President Obama to use his "executive power to stop almost all deportations". To read more on this story, please click here.
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Community News and Events
Latin American Association:
Come practice your Spanish (or English) at Coffee Hour at the Latin American Association! This event is for both Spanish and English speakers to come and interact in casual conversation while practicing their Spanish or English. This event is held every Tuesday and Wednesday from 5:30-6:30! Visit Latin American Association's Website at :
www.thelaa.org
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What's Happening at Feminist Women's Health Center?
Legislative Advocacy Workshop
Come all supporters of Women's Reproductive Rights! The Feminist Women's Health Center is having a Legislative Advocacy Workshop on Saturday, January 11th from 9:00am to 3:30pm. This workshop is to provide tips on how to become a more effective advocate. Breakfast and Lunch will be served!
Please follow the link below to get more details:
Advocacy Training
The Center is also having Advocacy Days where you can put your new skills learned from the training to work! FWHC will be meeting at 9am at the capitol on these days. Below are the dates:
January 25th
February 25th
March 25th
*Check out the flyer! Advocacy days
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Community Partnership Latinos For Health Luncheon & Award Ceremony This dynamic event brought the Latino community together to recognize several leaders who have done a great job advocating for the Hispanic community in Georgia. There were lots of community representatives and members of many organizations. Dr. Eduardo Monta�a, Chair of the coalition, led the group in recognizing leaders, highlighting some of the initiatives the coalition has in place to contribute to the health of the community. The audience was engaged by the excellent presentation from Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the American Heart Association. Dr. Sanchez passionately presented data about the importance of health care access for Latinos, recognizing the importance of education as one of the main factors in reducing morbidity and mortality among our growing community. CDC Hispanic Health Expo In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept.15- Oct.15), the CDC hosted a Hispanic Health Expo on Wednesday, September 18th. This event invited experts in the field and community organizations to provide a presentation and open conversation about the state of Hispanic health on a national, regional, and local level. LLVI tabled at the event to raise awareness about LLVI and what we do in the Latino community. Southeast Regional National Hispanic Medical Association Meeting Reception The LLVI teamattended the Reception Southeast Regional National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA) Meeting Reception on October 11th. This meeting reception included talks by public health and community experts, including a talk on the Affordable Care Act by NHMA President and CEO, Dr. Elena Rios. This provided an excellent opportunity for LLVI staff and other community organizations to network, ask questions, give their input, and become more informed about the Affordable Care Act and how to reach out to the Hispanic community about the Affordable Care Act and Marketplace. To find out more about the National Hispanic Medical Association, visit their website at www.nhmamd.org.
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Upcoming events with LLVI! - LLVI will be forming a Latina leadership committee! The objective of this committee will be to engage, support, educate, mobilize, advocate and together achieve reproductive justice for Latinas. The LLVI leadership will soon be identifying and inviting potential members from the Latino community to form and take part in the Leadership Committee. Stay tune!
- LLVI is looking for a Curriculum and Learning Resources Specialist Intern. The intern for this position will assist with curriculum development, training, and program evaluation for LLVI program. Please click here for more details.
- LLVI will be collaborating with Emory University Rollins School of Public Health to conduct an evaluation that intends to determine the extent to which the program objectives and indicators have been realized. Though this project will primarily be a learning process, it will ensure our program efficiency and effectiveness by evaluating the current needs of the Latino community and how our program is corresponding and matching that those needs.
- LLVI expects to roll out the new LLVI educational curriculum by February of 2014. The Promotoras will be trained with this new curriculum. We are so excited and looking forward it to these new opportunities!
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Breaking the Silence- LLVI Stories of Impact In this period we have gotten much feedback from the Latino Community in Atlanta about the issues that they are facing. LLVI works closely with Latina women from a leadership program in Canton County through providing workshops on reproductive and sexual health, and planning ways that the women can achieve social and economic self-sufficiency and empowerment. In one of LLVI's workshops in Canton, some of the women expressed why they want to participate in these workshops and what it would mean to them to gain knowledge about topics such as sexual/reproductive health, communicating with your family, economic sufficiency, and other life skills: "I want to learn how to help other women in my community; I want to teach them about reproductive health and about how to be a leader in my community." -Ana "I want to be able to go regularly to the doctor but I need to be stable economically. I want to start my own business this will help me with my self-esteem" - Irene Other testimonies reflect on other struggles many Latinos in Atlanta face, such as talking to your kids and educating them about sexual/ reproductive health and relationships: "Even though we have a close relationship with our children, we still feel very embarrassed talking to them about sex." -Vilma (a testimony given at a workshop in a clinic led by one of LLVI's promotoras)
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