|
Dear CERI Family and Community, My name is Patricia and I am the Wellness in Action Program Director at CERI. I am an immigrant from Columbia and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, educator and artist. Four years ago my colleague Laura Coelho, MPH, and I launched Wellness in Action (WiA) as a workforce education program at CERI. Our goal is to develop career paths in the mental health field for underserved refugees and immigrants in Alameda County. Every year we select a cohort of four or five grassroots community leaders with an interest in building careers in mental health and provide them with training, mentorship and technical assistance to offer community support groups. From the beginning we used a community cultural wealth and arts-based approach to engage in dialogue, theorizing, and praxis to assist our participant’s affirmation of their communities’ healing and wellness practices as an act of transformational resistance. This year, while the news of the pandemic closed in on us, we were busy developing the community support groups. Launching the groups online became our only option. Our biggest concerns were “How could we sustain authentic relational spaces while we are just boxes on the screen?”, and “How can I show up for my community while I am also feeling uncertain, vulnerable and raw?” Despite fear, trepidation, and dealing with the vulnerability of starting something new, we made the leap. This is how Adriana launched a support group for Brazilian Women in Portuguese, Beatriz started a wellness group for survivors of DV, Eliza created a wellness group for frontline workers, and Roberta provided nature and walking support group for Filipino activists, their families, and Filipino migrant workers.
|
