You might call Maria Pia Sanchez la reina de las mascarillas (the queen of face masks). Sanchez, a native of Chile who lives in Florida, worked with a few friends to sew masks to donate to front-line medical workers when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But they didn’t just sew. Sanchez also created the Para Todos Mask Initiative Facebook page, which has generated a worldwide network of Chilean, Mexican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Venezuelan, and other Latino volunteers to create over 7,000 masks for those who need them most. Update 8/24/20: They've made over 14,000 masks! How did this small sewing group impact the world?!
Coronavirus Pandemic Spurs Sanchez into Action
COVID-19 swept across the United States quickly in March 2020. By April 2020, experts said Latinos and other ...
Nathanael Fillmore felt his life was in danger every time he rode his bike on unsafe streets to his job as a computer scientist in Cambridge, Mass. (9.2% Latino). So he took action. Fillmore helped launch the Cambridge Bicycle Safety group, and they eventually pushed Cambridge to become the first U.S. city with a municipal law mandating construction of a network of permanent, protected bike lanes on local roads. They did it in three big steps: Build public support on an issues through community organizing
Translate public support into political support
Use political support to pass a law “Our focus was to work with elected officials to pass legal binding policy to change structural environment among staff and get a network of protected bike lanes built out,” ...
Randy LoBasso is pushing to make bicycling safer and more equitable in Philadelphia. But, as COVID-19 shut down businesses and schools, the bike-as-transportation enthusiast found people crowding local bike trails and making it hard to practice social/physical distancing. LoBasso had a thought. What if Philadelphia (15% Latino) closed streets to car traffic? Could people use streets to freely bike, walk, and be physically activity while also maintaining six-feet distance? LoBasso led an “open streets” petition and got the city to close a major street to cars, and open it for people walking, biking, and rolling. And he’s not stopping there.
LoBasso Understands Need for Biking as a Means of Transportation, Access to Opportunity
LoBasso isn’t a spandex-wearing ...
Over the past few years, dozens of U.S. schools launched the Handle With Care program to better support students facing childhood trauma like poverty and domestic violence. For the program, police alert school leaders when they encounter a child at a traumatic scene, so schools are prepared to keep an eye on the student and provide support or services. But now schools are closed due to coronavirus. So how are these schools adapting the Handle With Care program and maintaining meaningful connections with students in the face of school closures? We asked three people who got the Handle With Care program started in San Antonio.
How Did Handle With Care Begin in San Antonio?
Read or watch how Diana Centeno of San Antonio ISD (SAISD), John Hernandez of East Central ISD (ECISD), ...
Jenn Yates is an advocate who usually pushes for healthier school food in Arlington, Virginia (15.8% Latino). David Guas is a chef who usually is feeding people. These days, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Yates and Guas are a dynamic duo that provides free meals to vulnerable families to prevent hunger while schools and restaurants are closed. And, thanks to the advocate and the chef, red beans and rice are feeding thousands. May 5 UPDATE: The Chefs Feeding Families initiative has provided 18,000 meals to families across the DC metro area.
Yates, the Advocate, Understands the Importance of Food Assistance Programs
Yates grew up in a low-income, working family. She said she is grateful for food assistance programs like free meals at schools. “I got school meals as a kid,” ...
Elva Yañez—with her neighbors and allies—waged a campaign that has lasted over 15 years to preserve one of the last unprotected open green spaces in her Northeast Los Angeles community of El Sereno. Before working on healthy equitable land use issues, she worked in tobacco control. When she recognized similarities in the way tobacco companies and land developers fought to protect private interests from government regulation, she began using tobacco control tactics to fight for environmental justice. With the help of others, she led an effort to stop one particularly harmful residential development in her community that had serious public health and safety consequences. Throughout the campaign she knew she wanted to go upstream and address the systemic conditions that allowed ...
Finding the right message has always been important to Maria Alvarez. That determination is what led her to become a Vice President of Common Sense Media — a national, nonprofit communications network that is "dedicated to helping kids thrive in a rapidly changing world. Independent data on media and technology use and its impact on children's physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development." Alvarez, founded, designed, and continues to lead Common Sense Latino, the Spanish-language-only program of that organization, which creates content for that community specifically. “I’ve been on the ground and in the trenches with these families for over 10 years,” Alvarez said. “So, I know how willing Latino families are in embracing technology, and you see that in the ...
“I feel like my life is threatened at each intersection.” That is what Andreas Addison said about walking the streets and relying on mass transit during his #NoCarNovember experiences in Richmond, Va., where he is a city council member. He wanted safer streets and more frequent transit for his constituents. So Addison found two models he liked─a D.C. city leader’s omnibus bill (one that combines several measures into one package) for better transit, more walkability, and less car reliance, and Virginia Commonwealth University’s work to make campus safer for pedestrians. Addison then began working on an omnibus bill of his own to create a safer environment for people walking, biking, and taking the bus in Richmond.
Unfair Social and Health Outcomes in Richmond
Life ...
James Rojas loved how his childhood home brought family and neighbors together. The L.A. home had a big side yard facing the street where families celebrated birthdays and holidays. Uncles played poker. Aunts tended a garden. Children roamed freely. Mexican elders—with their sternness and house dresses—socialized with their American-born descendants—with their Beatles albums and mini-skirts. Rojas was shocked to find some would look down on this neighborhood. “Why do so many Latinos love their neighborhood so much if they are bad?” he wondered. Rojas, in grad school, learned that neighborhood planners focused far more on automobiles in their designs than they did on the human experience or Latino cultural influences. He wanted to change that. Rojas has spent ...
