Having lived in Truckee for over 14 years, Martha Cerna’s knowledge of this community’s needs has evolved and been polished to perfection. In one day she can be found running classes for moms and babies, gathering signatures and people for community betterment projects, and organizing events to promote health, well being, and community action. In September she mobilized many Truckee residents to join city officials on the Walkability tour to demonstrate the town’s needs to make walking a safer and more enjoyable activity for the public. She recently received the first annual ‘Local Champion’ award from the Family Resource Center of Truckee for her ‘special and significant impact on individuals and families in our community.’
Martha is part of a unique group of community activists, called promotoras.
When asked what a promotora is, Martha immediately responds, ‘What I do is promote health education and it’s a responsibility I must bring to the whole community.’ It is not a position she takes lightly; in fact if she herself cannot live it and believe in it, she will not promote it. ‘It is what I live and breathe,’ she said. As a promotora, Martha dedicates much of her time to educating families on the importance of dental health and promoting positive relationships through open communication between families and local agencies.
Blanca Barron is also a prominent promotora, in Kings Beach. A native of Mexico, Blanca was educated in Psychology with an emphasis on family therapy. She brings to the Kings Beach community a resolve to improve and enrich the lives of many young mothers suffering from postpartum depression and the chance to get to know and love their babies while they learn about the developmental stages of their offspring. This not only allows Blanca the opportunity to share her knowledge with others, but it also empowers her to feel needed in a community that is not naturally her own.
With her education and experience, Blanca offers helpful tools and ideas. Being a promotora for her is ‘the way in which you can reach a family through a relationship with them; it obviously begins through classes… once they begin to trust more, they come to classes more often and begin to grow,’ she said. ‘You begin to notice the changes. You realize that they are learning what you are teaching… really there are many important changes being made.’
It takes a village. A phrase commonly repeated, meaning that to nurture families and children, it takes the whole community.
While we may be no ‘village,’ we often feel isolated and overlooked by the strapped governmental social system of care, especially at the county level. For this reason the Tahoe Truckee region has over 160 nonprofit organizations working to fill the needs not easily met by distant governmental agencies. The Family Resource Centers of Truckee and North Tahoe are two of these resources dedicated to providing support, education, and information to the community at large. The Centers have found that working with promotoras, to be the resounding educative voice of the community, is generally the way to go.
Encarta defines Promotora as ‘an outreach worker in a Hispanic community who is responsible for raising awareness of health and educational issues.’ While promotoras have been around for many years, the power of promotoras is most brilliantly illustrated throughout Texas, Arizona, and California, where these activists have been promoting positive change in the system of care and overall well-being of historically underserved populations (mainly Latinos).
Promotoras, which act as independent consultants for local Family Resource Centers, are on the front line of providing education, information, and resources to those who most need it. The strength and effectiveness of their outreach comes from the fact that they themselves often come from within the communities they serve (culturally and economically). Frequently the families who require assistance do not know how to go about finding information and the necessary resources to get their basic needs met; promotoras guide, inform, listen and act. What sets them apart from traditional service providers is that they are highly trusted and well known in their communities. Many families avoid visits to agencies due to language barriers, cultural misinterpretations, lack of education, or fear of reprisals. A promotora understands the group she works with and finds ways to reach out, on their terms.
With the help of grant money and other agencies looking to support the dissemination of information, promotoras receive training and education through various workshops and informational sessions on varied topics. This is then passed on to community members through informal and formal meetings, chats, visitations, and gatherings.
Nine promotoras recently received 18 hours of training by Lactation Consultant Cindy Bansen, RN, on the benefits of breastfeeding. Armed with this important information, promotoras will canvass their respective communities to educate moms regarding the emotional, physical and economic advantages of breastfeeding their babes. Facts such as 1) the longer a woman breastfeeds, the more intelligent her child will be, 2) breastfeeding decreases the chances of obesity and diabetes in children and 3) it reduces the risk of getting various types of cancers in women.
While this seems like a simple and straightforward solution, promotoras often struggle against long-held beliefs. They must work with viewpoints that abound in myth and ancient lore and preconceived taboos, carried on through family traditions and cultural superstitions which must be carefully untangled in order to understand where they come from and to create conscious and healthy attitudes. The breastfeeding training brought out many of these long-standing and erroneous attitudes. For example, some women believe a woman who has just argued with her husband should not breastfeed her baby as the milk is ‘tainted,’ babies who cry often are hungry and need formula because mother’s milk is not sufficient; and a pregnant mother should not breastfeed her toddler. It is a fragile balance, encouraging people to face and question their ideas, in order to make constructive changes in their lives, while at the same time encouraging cultural pride and awareness.
The unsung heroes are the promotoras’ family members. Martha’s family supports her in all that she does, though on occasion they do tire of being out in public to find that Mom is the local superstar everyone needs to have a chat with. But this is what makes a promotora a community leader, an activist, and an example of commitment. They are the archetype of successful women (of which Tahoe Truckee is blessed to have quite a few) – passionate activists who promote change in our ‘village’ through care, respect, and dedication.
