Reflections on the 15th Annual Conference – Vision y Compromiso
Recently I joined the Board of Directors of Vision y Compromiso – a training and advocacy network for more than 6,000 promotoras and community health workers, led by a great friend and wonderful leader, Maria Lemus. http://visionycompromiso.org/
Their annual conference, held last week in Ontario, California (no not Canada), was just terrific; over 900 promotoras attended. This is a conference for those with Corazon and Courage. The promotoras began planning their three-day event nearly 10 months in advance. Over 100 were present a day in advance, hard at work preparing the materials, the rooms, the presentations and decorations.
The theme for this year’s event was “Resiliency in Times of Change”. The keynote speakers (Rosa Martha Zarate and Dr. Sergio Aquilar-Gaxiola) highlighted the key challenges to community, immigrants, health, environment, and the courage and resiliency needed to stand up and persevere in such a difficult national political environment. The presentations will be posted soon.
The two hour workshops were filled with practical information from experienced local promotoras on topics such as mental health, diabetes, aging, reading circles, literacy, the internet, maternal health and parenting, child wellness, sexual abuse, cancer prevention, community empowerment, etc. They were highly informative and the participants deeply engaged. http://www.vycconference.org/workshops/ Each night there was wonderful dancing.
For those who love to learn and dance, this was the place to be. For those who helped support the event, your contributions were deeply appreciated, many thanks. Come and test out your Spanish language literacy and comprehension with friends. Hope to see even more of you there next year.
Lucien