In 2004, 26 Latina breast cancer survivors from South Texas shared their stories to inspire hope, comfort, and resiliency in a bilingual booklet called Nuestras Historias. Today, many of the survivors have new, heart-warming stories to tell about how Latinas can survive cancer and thrive in the workplace, school, home, and family on the 10th anniversary of the booklet, which was produced by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio and her Redes En Acción Latino cancer research network funded by the National Cancer Institute. They vivacious survivors have been living in "technicolor," you might say. Indeed, check out a new story, "Latina Survivors Savor a Decade of Living in Technicolor," on Pages 12-15 of the UT Health Science Center's Mission ...
The blog School Bites is run by a mom who wants to provide the healthiest and most nutritious food for her children. At home she can help teach them healthy eating, but at school her children and other students are exposed to a lot junk food. Over the past couple of years she has been fighting to make the food culture a healthier place in her local school district and here is what she had to say on her blog about what she accomplished:
What finally worked was a stronger district wellness policy combined with teacher education (SEE Healthy Classrooms Initiative: Educating Teachers on Healthy School Celebrations, Non-Food Rewards & More). I managed to get a spot on a committee that was convened to update our policy according to the ...
Texas is "worse" than most states in poverty, health insurance coverage, and income equality, according to a new report. The report, from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, tracked 15 poverty indicators, for which Texas ranked in the bottom half of the country for 11 indicators. For example, 17.5% of Texans had incomes below the poverty line ($23,834 annually for a family of four) in 2013, ranking the state 38th in the nation. Texas also ranked: 50th in the nation for health care coverage among low-income people.
49th in the nation for hunger and food insecurity (meaning that they experienced difficulty providing enough food due to a lack of money or resources during some point of the year).
42nd in the nation for higher education attainment rate.
43rd in the ...
Elementary schools belonging to the Miami-Dade County Public School (MDCPS) system in Florida (66% Latino) are exploring new ways of getting students to be active throughout the school day. According to a blog post from PreventObesity.org, in addition to providing students with 30 minutes of daily physical education (PE), the district is now using the concepts of indoor fitness trails and scan technology to provide students with more minutes of physical activity. School hallways are transformed into indoor fitness trails with QR codes that are placed throughout hallways. Teachers schedule a time for using the fitness trail and stop where QR codes are located. They are then scanned with an iPad or mobile device that has a QR reader app installed on it. Once a QR code is ...
The Mixing Bowl is a community commercial kitchen that has been helping small food businesses get going in New Mexico for the past ten years. To celebrate their decade of success, the Mixing Bowl is asking the New Mexico State legislature for $700,000 to fund development of a dozen other similar kitchens throughout the state, calling it the La Cocina initiative. If funded, the La Cocina Initiative will help a dozen existing rural New Mexico communities build out food entrepreneur programs based on the successful Mixing Bowl model in underutilized commercial kitchens like those in community center, schools, and churches. But these community kitchens aren't aimed at simply producing food---they want the food to be fresh and healthy. Delicious New Mexico helps with this ...
What's one way to build healthy communities? How about giving the community a voice in the design process? That's what the Center for Active Design hopes to accomplish by developing new guidelines to promote civic engagement as part of the design process. Thanks to the support of a $115,000 grant from the Miami based, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Center for Active Design will build on previous work such as the Active Design Guidelines, through its new “Designing for Robust Engagement, initiative. “We believe that design plays a key role in developing communities that are more civically engaged, and we want to understand its true impact,” says Reena Agarwal, Center for Active Design policy director in an American City and County news article. “Funding ...
The number of Latino students receiving bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences and engineering is on the rise, according to a report from the American Institute of Physics (AIP) Statistical Research Center. In 2012, for the first time ever, the number of Latinos earning physical science and engineering degrees surpassed 10,000/year. Between 2002 to 2012, the number of Latinos earning bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences and engineering rose by 78% and 64% respectively. "While those numbers are encouraging, Hispanics are still underrepresented in many fields, including astronomy and earth sciences," said Laura Merner, the research associate who authored the report. "More Hispanic students earning physical science degrees is a good thing, but it does not mean ...
Mobile food markets are rolling out across the country, bringing fresh fruits and vegetables into areas without full-service grocery stores near by. In Pittsburgh, however, no such mobile market exists---yet. Farm Truck Foods, a new mobile market serving areas around Pittsburgh, will begin selling produce this coming Spring. With support from a $75,000 grant it received from the community development nonprofit Neighborhood Allies, Farm Truck Foods will buy a truck and retrofit it with refrigerators and other equipment. It will sell affordable and fresh produce, grains, dairy products, meat and some pre-packaged foods in a number of communities that lack healthy food access. Shoppers will be able to buy items with cash, credit cards, debit cards and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance ...
A street makeover for San Francisco's Second Street is in the works. According to a news article from socketsite.com plans for the upgrades to Second Street include: bike lanes, sidewalks, plants, and safe roadways---all part of what a true complete street should look like. This project aims to make Second Street a complete street, or a street designed for all road users. According to a factsheet from the San Francisco Public Works department, after gathering all the necessary permits, construction for the project could begin in 2016 and be complete within about a year. Read more about this ...
