Sociedad Latina's Health Educators in Action
It is evident in our community that health inequities, differences in health outcomes that are unnecessary, avoidable, unjust, and unfair, exist between different ethnic groups due to lack of resources, education, and opportunity. We consider this “unfinished business” in the civil rights struggle, and our youth Health Educators work to remove barriers to healthy diet and lifestyle choices through community organizing and health education initiatives. Young people of color who live in our high-need Roxbury neighborhood are not traditionally in positions where they can effect change, but our program empowers them to find solutions through an innovative, community-based model. Through the replication of our program in other communities, we can impact health inequities on a national scale.
About You
About You
First Name
Alexandra
Last Name
Oliver-Dávila
http://twitter.com/#!/sociedadlatina
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Sociedad Latina
Organization Website
Organization Phone
617-442-4299
Organization Address
1530 Tremont St.
Organization Country
United States, MA
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States, MA, Suffolk County
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Innovation
Entry Form title
Sociedad Latina's Health Educators in Action
What change do you want to bring to the world?
It is evident in our community that health inequities, differences in health outcomes that are unnecessary, avoidable, unjust, and unfair, exist between different ethnic groups due to lack of resources, education, and opportunity. We consider this “unfinished business” in the civil rights struggle, and our youth Health Educators work to remove barriers to healthy diet and lifestyle choices through community organizing and health education initiatives. Young people of color who live in our high-need Roxbury neighborhood are not traditionally in positions where they can effect change, but our program empowers them to find solutions through an innovative, community-based model. Through the replication of our program in other communities, we can impact health inequities on a national scale.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Health Educators empowers at-risk youth in our community who are often voiceless and without a means for effecting positive change. We believe those affected by issues are in the best position to identify solutions, and therefore all campaigns are youth-chosen and youth-led. In training, youth learn essential leadership skills, including public speaking, working with the media, and outreach. After training, they formulate action plans considering targets, allies, and opponents. Community-based research is continuous; data is used to evaluate campaign effectiveness, inform improvements, and respond to changing community needs. Youth develop the skills they need to mobilize their communities and deepen their political analysis and vision for fundamental social change. Training includes modules on social justice, power systems, and organizing tactics, and builds the next generation of Latino leaders who will make community changes sustainable.
To reverse the impact of health inequities, youth facilitate nutrition, fitness, and wellbeing workshops, seek policy changes, and promote healthy lifestyles. They establish and deepen partnerships with hospitals, health institutions, city officials and agencies, and businesses to expand access to healthy lifestyles options. Current campaigns:
-“Think Before You Drink” focuses sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs)
-Nutrition & Fitness includes workshops, a healthy eating food festival, and a healthy lifestyle “Boot Camp” during spring break
-Tobacco Control addresses smoking and the dangers of other tobacco products (OTPs) marketed toward youth
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Health policy initiatives are often led by those in established power structures, however we recognize those most affected by an issue are in the best positions to find innovative solutions. We empower a grassroots cohort of youth to increase healthy lifestyle opportunities in our community and pursue policy changes that interrupt destructive cycles of health inequities. Continuous community needs assessments and daily, on-the-ground experience make our health and wellness initiatives community responsive.
Youth are the stewards of Sociedad Latina and all decisions are youth-informed. We make changes to our programs based on youth evaluations, and we choose campaigns based on their interests and concerns. Through this philosophy, we ensure youth have a greater stake in outcomes and remain dedicated to their work. To acknowledge their impact and importance, youth are appropriately compensated.
Other Boston organizations have similar missions, but ours is unique because of its focus on youth and its deep ties to and understanding of the Latino community. Organizations such as Health Resources in Action and the Community Health Education Center do not have the experience for making the connections necessary to reach the youth of our community and successfully build the base required for policy change advocacy. Our 40+ years of working in our community places us in an advantageous position for building collaborations. And our programs make connections with Latino culture and heritage, and are culturally competent to make sustainable change relevant to the community.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
In the Health of Boston 2010 report, our low-income Roxbury neighborhood (more than 50% Black and around 25% Latino) has the highest hospitalization rate for high blood pressure and heart disease, and the 2nd-highest for diabetes. Local availability of healthy and affordable options for nutrition is sorely lacking. Corner stores promote processed food and drinks high in sugar or fat, and low in nutrition, few carry fruits and vegetables, and SSBs are pervasive. Advertising bombards the community with images of cigarettes, alcohol, and junk food. Violence and crime notoriously plague our neighborhood, and compared to other police districts in the city, Roxbury has the 2nd-highest crime rate.
Sociedad Latina youth confront a unique set of challenges including:
• Community health inequities
• Poverty
• Disconnection from cultural identities
• Language barriers and immigration status
• Family mobility
• Inadequate schools
Though many youth we serve are resilient, statistics show they need extra support to change their life trajectories and progress as healthy, empowered, self-sufficient adults. Our education, civic engagement, workforce development, and arts & culture programs provide these services, and our Health Educators program, the subject of this request, actively works to improve the health and wellness of its participants, their peers, and our entire community. Our 40+ years of understanding and serving our Latino community, and our culturally proficient approach that views diverse backgrounds as an asset and not a barrier and builds youth resiliency, are key to our success.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Executive Director Alexandra Oliver-Dávila has worked for more than 18 years – the last 12 at Sociedad Latina – to create a community that supports Boston-area young Latinos, values their input, and believes in their ability to create positive change. Under her leadership, we have quadrupled our budget and more than doubled the number of paid youth positions. Alex is extremely active in our community forging partnerships and deepening collaborations. She led the formation of the Mission Hill Youth Collaborative and Mission Hill Jobs Collaborative, and co-chairs the Boston Youth Service Network. She serves on the Workforce Investment Youth Council, the Boston After School and Beyond Partnership Council, the Families United in Educational Leadership (FUEL) Advisory Board, and community advisory boards for Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In 1998 she was named to the Podermetro list of the 100 most influential leaders in Massachusetts’ Latino community, and was recently chosen for the prestigious Barr Fellowship for the most gifted and experienced leaders in the Boston area.
In 2003, Alex launched the Youth Community Organizing program, which hires youth to train in leadership skills and advocate for policy change on issues like education and sustainable development. After several community needs assessments, youth identified health inequities as a new priority and launched our Health Equity Initiative in 2005. With interest and successes building, Alex, along with our Board, decided this year to launch Health Educators as a separate program.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
Each year, we hire 150 youth for our Health Equity Initiative. Last year’s success:
-Launching a campaign for a SSB-free zone for local hospitals
-Hosting a week-long Youth Fitness Boot Camp for 103
-Hosting the neighborhood’s 1st Healthy Food Festival
-Hosting weekly fitness nights in the park during the summer attended by 582
-Outreach to 1,200 households and workshops for more than 500 on healthy lifestyles
Youth helped pass a 2009 city ordinance limiting storefront advertising (tobacco, unhealthy food, alcohol), and created and led a 2003-04 campaign that raised the annual tobacco sales licensing fee – raising $46,500 for enforcing underage smoking laws.
We measure success by the number of community members engaged and by fulfillment of goals and objectives:
Goal 1- Raise awareness of health inequities and reduce effects by policy change advocacy, education, and outreach
Obj 1a- Run campaigns on SSBs, tobacco control, and school lunches (new this year, see more in next section)
Obj 1a- Facilitate nutrition, fitness, and wellbeing workshops and activities; testify and present at hearings and forums; promote healthy lifestyles through media
Goal 2- Reduce obstructions that contribute to disproportionate levels of heart disease, stroke, diabetes, childhood obesity
Obj 2a- Implement community responsive, culturally competent health and wellness programming including cooking demos and fitness activities
Obj 2b- Establish and deepen partnerships with health institutions, city officials and agencies, and businesses to expand access to local, affordable, healthy food and fitness options
How many people have been impacted by your project?
1,001- 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
We will launch our We Are What We Eat school lunch reform campaign to improve the Boston Public Schools food system, and increase fresh, healthy, and culturally relevant options to menus.
Task 1
Youth are trained in nutrition, community organizing, and outreach
Task 2
Youth explore food justice issues and research lunch systems; identify opportunities for healthier school lunches and nutrition education for staff and students
Task 3
Youth collect input on food system from students, teachers, and administrators; document quality of food; compile and analyze data; begin formulating advocacy platform and strategy
Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Within one year, we will solidify advocacy platforms and “asks” for our We Are What We Eat campaign and begin organizing for positive community change.
Task 1
Youth finalize advocacy platform and strategy for school lunch campaign based on student/teacher/administrator input, observations, research, and nutrition consultant recommendations
Task 2
Youth solidify allies and delegate tasks
Task 3
Youth begin campaign actions including presentations to the School Committee and City Council, and make formal demands for policy change
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
We expect to see Health Educators blossom into its own, stand-alone program, bolstered by 3 new policy victories as a result of our We Are What We Eat, Think Before You Drink, and Storefront Advertising campaigns, and the resulting improvement of the health and wellbeing of our community. As our program develops and grows, we will regularly analyze and evaluate our plans, strategy, and effectiveness. The data will assist in our development of a replicable model of community-based, youth health advocacy programming, and a curriculum of training for youth. After 1 year, we will begin sharing our model with other community-based organizations in Boston to assist them in finding solutions to their specific health needs and develop strong allies for regional policy advocacy and organizing.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
A major barrier to our project is the length of time it takes to achieve policy change. Through our experience winning policy changes, however, we understand the commitment necessary and we have the community support and partnerships to succeed. For example, youth worked for multiple years on our Tobacco Control campaign that resulted in victories in 2004 and 2009 (see more above), and continue to work on the storefront advertising issue today. Civic Engagement is one of 4 focus areas in our mission, and we have a long-term commitment to community change. Ongoing engagement strategies, of which paid Youth Health Educator positions are a highlight, maintain campaign interest.
Strong community ties also important. Partnerships help us leverage resources, and our project will continually seek new collaboration opportunities. Partners we have experience with include our 10-institution Health Sciences Network, the Boston Public Health Commission, and Boston Public Schools. We regularly work with youth organizers across the city at places such as Hyde Square Task Force, Teen Empowerment, Boston United for Students, and Boston Mobilization.
We plan to engage in a strategic planning process to work toward self-sufficiency through earned income. We have identified the following business opportunities as sources of income that will help us reach this goal: youth training programs in leadership, community organizing, and health and wellness; formalizing and selling our bilingual curriculum; and working as consultants for organizations looking to adopt our model.
Tell us about your partnerships
Youth receive training on nutrition, health inequities, and healthy lifestyles from our 10-institution Health Sciences Network, including those in the world-renowned Longwood Medical Area such as Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School, Mass. College of Pharmacy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Other partners include: Children’s Hospital specialists who lead trainings on nutrition, and identifying healthy food in stores and restaurants; the Boston Public Health Commission, which helps address health inequities created by storefront advertising trends, provides technical assistance on the issue of race and healthy food access, and supports our SSB campaign; the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, which helped design a community health assessment plan; the Body By Brandy gym, which offers free memberships to families in our organization; and Boston’s Inspectional Services Department, which ensures merchants follow ordinances regulating storefront advertising. We are a member of the Mission Hill Youth Collaborative and the Boston Youth Service Network, which are coalitions of youth-serving organizations in our community that share services, and have working partnerships with the organizers in Teen Empowerment and Boston Mobilization to support actions. Within this deep network of collaborators, Sociedad Latina often serves as a connector between institutions, systems of power, and Latino youth and adults in our community.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$100,000‐250,000
Explain your selections
-50% of funding is from local hospitals and health institutions in our community such as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital, Harvard School of Public Health, New England Baptist Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
-30% of funding is from foundations such as the American Heart Association, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing, and the Latino Center of Excellence for Eliminating Disparities.
-10% of funding is from local government, including the Boston Public Health Commission and the District Attorney’s Asset Forfeiture Reinvestment Program.
-5% of funding is from individuals.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
In addition to the expansion of our community organizing campaigns, the formalization and marketing of our program model, and the pursuit of financial self-sufficiency described above, our organization has a business plan that will strengthen our project over the next 3 years. Focus areas include:
Long-term youth engagement: Experience tells us youth and organizational outcomes improve the longer youth stay engaged, which also translates into policy change success; we are currently aligning and solidifying services to retain youth.
Full integration of Youth Development and Family Engagement models in all programs: Integrating Civic Engagement, 1 of 4 focus areas in our Youth Development model, and families into all programming strengthens our community organizing base and commitment to policy change.
Professional and leadership development for staff: Our organization-wide initiative to promote professional development and leadership opportunities among staff will contribute to the strength of our project.
As a core component of our Youth Development Model (which includes programming in Civic Engagement, Education, Workforce Development, and Arts & Culture), Health Educators and the school lunch campaign will remain a priority for staffing, resources, and fundraising. We will continue to ensure the project is responsive to community needs through needs assessments, collaborators will be enlisted, and project objectives will continually move forward as goals are reached and others identified.
Challenges
Which barriers to health and well-being does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Lack of access to targeted health information and education
SECONDARY
Health behavior change
TERTIARY
Lack of affordable care
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
Lack of access to targeted health info and education: Youth receive training on health and wellness, and take their knowledge to our underserved community through nutrition, fitness and wellbeing workshops in locations such as Sociedad Latina programs, other youth organizations, community events and schools, and promoting healthy lifestyles through media.
Health behavior change: Youth raise awareness of health inequities in our community, and reduce effects through our Health Equity Initiative that includes testifying, advocacy and community organizing for policy changes that influence health behaviors; collaboration with government- and outside organization-sponsored health campaigns; and work with businesses to expand access to local, affordable, healthy food and fitness options.
How are you growing the impact of your organization or initiative?
Please select up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
SECONDARY
Influenced other organizations and institutions through the spread of best practices
TERTIARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
Enhanced impact through additional services: We will add a new school lunch reform campaign that seeks new school menu nutritional requirements, low-fat vegetarian/vegan meals, and requires food service workers, teachers and students participate in education about good nutrition, healthy eating and food social justice issues.
Influenced others through spread of best practices: We believe our program model is adaptable to other community-based organizations and plan on sharing our best practices by developing a bilingual curriculum of community organizing youth trainings; a staff manual for developing organizing strategies, and necessary partners and collaborators; and offering our assistance to organizations through partnerships, consulting, technical assistance and training sessions.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
NGOs/Nonprofits, Academia/universities.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
Govt: We are a Boston Public Health Commission grantee, who supports our new SSB media campaign launching this fall, provides technical assistance on race and healthy food access issues, and collaborates on our Storefront Advertising Campaign along with the Boston Inspectional Services Department.
NGOs/Nonprofits: Teen Empowerment and Boston Mobilization support campaign actions, while membership in the Mission Hill Youth Collaborative and Boston Youth Service Network provide links to outside services. We partner with the statewide 84 Movement on Tobacco Control.
Academia/universities: Our 10-insitution Health Sciences Network of hospitals and schools (see above) leads trainings on nutrition and wellness, assists with community needs assessments and provides technical assistance.
 | 86 weeks ago Alexandra Oliver-Dávila updated this Competition Entry. |
| 87 weeks ago Alexandra Oliver-Dávila updated this Competition Entry. |
| 87 weeks ago Alexandra Oliver-Dávila updated this Competition Entry. |
| 88 weeks ago Alexandra Oliver-Dávila updated this Competition Entry. |
| 88 weeks ago Alexandra Oliver-Dávila submitted this idea. |
