On Saturday, January 18th, 2014, Humboldt Park residents attended a Bohio Housing Services Housing Seminar at La Casa Puertorriqueña. The Housing Seminar sought to encourage Puerto Rican and Latino potential homebuyers to buy in Humboldt Park. At the housing seminar, participants were given information about the benefits of owning versus renting, the buying and loan process and why they should consider Humboldt Park as a place to buy. Bohio Housing Services is a partnership between the Puerto Rican Cultural Center and the Division Street Business Development Association. For more information about our housing and renting services, please contact Shirley Payton at 773-782-0454 or shirleyp@prcc-chgo.org.

This Saturday, January 25th the PRCC's ACA Program in collaboration with Music Box Records will be conducting an enrollment event targeting the artist population, including musicians, singers, photographers, etc. This event will also be a wonderful opportunity for Forest Park residents to learn more about the ACA and to enroll in a health insurance plan with the assistance of a certified, bilingual Navigator.

The event will take place from 10am to 2pm at the Music Box Records facilities: 7433 Roosevelt Road, Forest Park IL 60130.  For more information, please call us at 773-227-7794.

On Saturday, January 18th, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center opened its doors to a new office in the Hermosa community. The office located at 4046 W. Armitage Avenue, 2nd floor, is dedicated to providing quality services to community residents. We will be assisting people with the application process for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare. This past Saturday, we celebrated the soft opening of the office during an event conducted from 10am to 3pm. A representative from the Office of the Governor and from Enroll America collaborated with the staff to conduct outreach efforts in the community. In spite of the snowy weather conditions, this event was a great success. We processed many enrollment applications and we also had people from the community stopping by to see our new office.    

The Keep Your Heart Healthy initiative is hosted at The Greater Humboldt Park Diabetes Empowerment Center (2753 W. Division St.) every Saturday from 10AM-2PM.  We encourage community residents to come and take a FREE heart health screening with our medical residents and learn your risk for heart disease or heart attack. This screening only requires your weight, height and blood pressure be measured followed by a short survey. All participants will have access to referrals to our partner hospitals or clinics and those found at risk are eligible for assistance with making an appointment for follow-up care. While participants wait to be screened they may participate in a number of activities ranging from nutrition education, healthy cooking demonstrations with recipes and food samples or fun Dance Aerobics and Zumba group exercise.

In participating in our FREE Keep Your Heart Healthy screenings, participants can also ask doctors or medical residents questions about their health and consult on advice on their future medical care.

Keep Your Heart Healthy will be hosting healthy heart screenings at various organizations and agencies in the Humboldt Park area. If you'd like for us to host a Keep Your Heart Healthy Screening event at your agency please contact Magdalena (Maggie) Nava at magdalenan@prcc-chgo.org or 773-342-0855.

At Clemente High School, we offer CPR training to help students with after-school or summer job requirements, or simply to improve cardiac survival rates in their community. When you teach students CPR in school, you're strengthening community safety -- and giving students skills they can carry into the future.

In Freshman Health class, students are learning how to be a first responder to a person in need of assistance. We teach students how to do CPR on adults, children, and infants who are not breathing and need of medical assistance. We also show students how to save a person who is choking, as well as how to use an A.E.D. (Automated External Defibrillator). The earlier you take steps in an emergency, the better chance of a patient's survival.

Steps to CPR

1.Check the scene for safety

2.Check the person for responsiveness and nor­mal breathing

3.Call 911

4.Give 30 Chest Compressions

5.Open the Airway

6.Give 2 Breaths

On Sunday January 19, after a National Boricua Human Rights meeting to securing the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera, people gathered from Chicago, Florida, Ohio, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Puerto Rico and Detroit to commemorate the life of Oscar Collazo Lopez.  Jan 20, 2014 marked the 100th anniversary the birthday of Oscar Collazo, ex-political prisoner who spent 29 years in prison. At the commemoration at El Maestro Cultural Center, named after the Puerto Rican patriot Don Pedro Albizu Campos. Speakers included El Maestro's Executive Director Fernando 'Ponce' Laspina, president of La Fundacion Andrés Figueroa Cordero, Bomexi  Iztaccihuat, ex-political prisoner Ricardo Jiménez and the keynote speaker Dr. José E. López Rivera, grand jury resistor and brother of Oscar López Rivera.

José spoke about his personal encounters with Oscar Collazo's and the influence he had on his life and dedication to the struggle for the betterment of the Puerto Rican people. He brought attention to the parallels between the Oscar López Rivera and Oscar Collazo López, and about the history of persecution and about Puerto Rican ability to resist. All of the speakers invoked the past as something to learn from and inspire us in our continued struggle to release the Oscar López Rivera, who has served 32 years imprisoned by the US.

As part of this historic event, the crowd heard passionate poet Zelideth Diaz Hatch dedicated several heartfelt poems to Oscar López Rivera. Iris Colon Dipini, with Grupo Maestro, passionately sang a decima written by Oscar Collazo López, which he dedicated to the Puerto Rican women in the International Year of Women.

Zelideth Diaz Hatch por la Libertad de Oscar Lopez Rivera video por Jose Rivera 1:19:14

The National Boricua Human Rights Network organized a national meeting in New York the MLK weekend. Upwards of 50 crowded El Maestro Cultural Center, a youth athletic center named after Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos, which teaches youth boxing skills, also regularly organizes patriotic events. Beginning Saturday evening, representatives from 10 cities met to discuss plans for broadening the Campaign to Free Oscar. The first presentation was by Alida Millan Ferrer and Annette Diaz from 32xO, the group that has organized a vigil on the "Dos Hermanos" Bridge every last Sunday of the month since May 29 of last year. Compañeras Alida and Anette presented a slideshow and explained the beginnings of the vigil, the inspiration for the idea, and evolution of monthly event. The monthly vigils have expanded beyond the core 32 women and the theme changes on a rotating basis, so that social workers, lawyers, and young women have stepped up on separate Sundays. From there, the discussion moved to the possibilities of the Network planning similar events in 6 cities this year. 

The cities- San Francisco, Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Detroit, Orlando and Hartford presented about their work and as well as their future plans. Boston, not present, emailed their report. The New York Coordinator to Free Oscar López Rivera and the National Boricua Human Rights Network presented and together gave a more complete report. On Sunday, the "letters for Oscar campaign", May 29, 2014 and "Postcards for Oscar" was discussed and goals were set. The meeting ended with a resource and production update that included a website re-emphasis, t-shirts, new buttons and a new brochure. Immediately afterwards, the crowd, and newcomers, stayed for the 100th Anniversary of Oscar Collazo event.

Last Sunday evening, Rev. Sam Cruz, Senior Pastor of the Brooklyn-based Trinity Lutheran Church, hosted a dinner at his Brooklyn Church for over a dozen guests to listen to Dr. José E. López, brother of Oscar and Executive Director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago, speak on the challenges for the campaign to Free Oscar in 2014. José presented Rev. Cruz with 2 gifts, a flag of the Paseo Boricua "coat of arms" and a print of Oscar. José Candelario, a guest and labor activist, asked Emma Lozano to speak on the state of immigration reform. The principal point of discussion that evening was an event planned for Monday, Feb. 24, at Trinity Lutheran Church, 6-8pm. See the leaflet below.