Photo: NCAP's Ana Elisa Wilson and Tommy Díaz speak with a group of farm workers at the Migrant Education Program in Hermiston, OR.

Why In-Person Events are Vital for our Farm Worker Education Project

(By Tommy Díaz, Healthy People & Communities Program Manager)

Our last community event in Hermiston gave us insight into the importance of NCAP’s Spanish programming in Central and Eastern Oregon. We had 68 Latine adults and over 50 children show up at the Migrant Education Program’s offices for our latest Plática Participativa. For our Spanish language programming this is an enormous milestone—we had more people than at any of our previous events!

During this workshop on March 10th we were able to address Hispanic families directly and touch on important topics such as pesticide exposure, climate crisis effects, and community health. We also handed out our Spanish language resources, including a drift toolkit and our heat and smoke awareness flyer.

Given the optimum conditions of having a big enough space for attendees, wonderful volunteers and a comfortable platform to share thoughts, we were able to access stories that we would not hear about through a video conference or email exchange. This is why having in-person events is a pillar of NCAP’s Farm Worker Education Project, and we are so glad to be doing this with coronavirus cases decreasing.

Husbands, wives and family members shared important information about their daily lives with the rest of the group. Some chose to approach us in private to chat about abusive and violent practices at work.

These are voices that need to be heard, stories that need to be shared.

We are working alongside partner organizations to adapt our resources and connections to be a collective platform for these stories, and to better serve the Latinx community.

We would like to extend a big THANK YOU to our collaborators: Migrant Education Program (Hermiston location), Radio La Ley and Food For All Oregonians. We also want to thank our funders: Oregon Health Authority and Meyer Memorial Trust.

If you would like to donate to support our farm worker programs, please give to NCAP today!