Subscribe to the RSS feed.What a CHP Grant Can Do - For an Immigrant Community in Portland
According to Elizabeth Fussell, Development Director, at the VOZ Workers Rights Education Project, “our community conversations went extremely well! We had a total of 87 day laborers participate, of which 40 attended all three of the films and discussions at least once.”
As part of the grant, VOZ showed three episodes of Unnatural Causes and hosted discussions and brainstorm sessions about how to improve the health for day laborers in Portland.
On November 19, they watched the episode about immigration along with constituents of the Center for Intercultural Organizing. Those who had been present for the first session helped to facilitate the discussions for the second session.
The process in and of itself was found to be valuable to virtually all those involved, and included rich conversation, most of which was in Spanish.
One participant said “I think that one of the factors that we can change to better our health system is to use our time wisely when we are not working. Doing things like art, spending time on something productive, not just sitting and thinking about our problems.”
One commented that working together on issues can go a long way.
Another said, “we should do some kind of sport so we can be a little healthier and not just eat anything, have a good diet, and take care of our bodies so we can be healthier.”
For this viewing, Voz was able to secure a non-profit rate for the film series and used saved dollars for food, incentives, and staff time required for the “unanticipated but exciting” participation from the day labor community.
