continued from coverTCWF Grantees Address Important Health Needs in Increasingly Diverse Orange County“This program offers nursing students opportunities to get on-the-job training in community clinics that serve these communities. They’re learning important cultural skills as well as medical, and the clinics are getting additional staffing,” Jemmott said. Another underserved community is the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) population, which makes up 13 percent of Orange County’s residents. The Vietnamese community centered in the Westminster-Garden Grove area is the largest outside of Vietnam.
To help alleviate the problem, TCWF awarded OCAPICA a two-year, $100,000 grant to provide outreach and health education to low-income Asian and Pacific Islander men. As a first step, OCAPICA established an 18-member task force with health care providers, community leaders and people who have been affected by men’s health issues, including women who often influence family attitudes and behaviors about health care. “Because our project is working with nine different ethnic communities represented within the API population here, our challenge has been where to focus our resources,” Foo said. “But we’re finding that focusing on men’s health needs in general has brought everyone together.” OCAPICA is developing health education curricula for English as a Second Language classes, instituting a speakers bureau and holding health fairs where men can get information and certificates for free physicals at medical clinics. Health education materials about prostate cancer, heart disease and men’s overall physical and mental health have been translated into Korean and Vietnamese, with Samoan and Chinese versions in progress. “The strategy of going directly to men and training them to improve health-seeking behaviors and promote those behaviors among their peers is very appropriate for the Asian population,” said TCWF Program Officer Fatima Angeles. “Social norms are important, and creating a norm that recognizes health issues provides many more opportunities to sustain these efforts in the long term.” Social and cultural issues also affect young Vietnamese Americans involved in gangs and gang-related violence in Orange County, affecting not only Asian communities but also the county at large. “Young Vietnamese face language barriers, cultural gaps between parents and themselves and a society where family abuse is just now being exposed as a problem,” said Duc Nguyen, program manager with the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc. (VNCOC). VNCOC received a two-year, $112,500 grant from TCWF to prevent violence among Vietnamese youth in Orange County. To pursue this goal, VNCOC coordinates Project Southeast Asian Empowerment Development, a partnership with the Orange County Probation Department and school districts that offers bicultural and bilingual social services to at-risk students and incarcerated youth ages 10 to 19. Counselors work with incarcerated young people and their families and hold workshops for at-risk students, primarily in the Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Westminster school districts. The counselors teach participants how to communicate effectively, resist peer pressure, raise self-esteem and deal with family problems. More than 100 youth have completed the program. Follow-up contacts keep “graduates” in touch with VNCOC, and five youth are now volunteer tutors. continued |
Winter 2000/2001
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Pooled fund for school clinics Male-focused teen pregnancy prevention 2000 California Peace Prize awardees Health insurance for low-wage workers
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