Latino/a Leaders Set Agenda

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on November 13, 2007

Latino/a Leaders held a regular meeting last Friday November 9th at Just Food Cooperative’s community room in Northfield to discuss their current role within Northfield and the wider south central Minnesota region.  The first meeting was conducted on August 31st when 11 representatives participated.  The network has grown to 15 with around 8 to 10 attending regular meetings at a given time, interest in also growing in towns east, west and south of Northfield, stay tuned for updates.

Since the first meeting, four focus work areas where identified and they include:

1 – Economic development with a short term focus on supporting established or start-up entrepreneurs, exploration of their ideas, planning, and execution.  This work will be led by the Latino Enterprise Center in partnership with the rest of the leadership network and partner organizations.

2 – Health and social services.  This involves education around healthy food choices, preventive health, access to treatment and family and children services.  This work will be led by Health Finders, which covers the Rice county region.

3 – Community safety through a direct engagement of the public safety department.  This work will be coordinated by a group that still needs to be defined.

4 – Children’s education through school connectedness.  We recognize that our children’s success at school is directly connected to the level of parent involvement. Our group will be exploring strategies for engaging the network of parents with school age children in a sustained system of involvement with the schools.

To start the implementation process, a short term plan was put in place so that we can get into action on service items that are ready for public consumption.  To make these services available and promote them, two community-wide 4 hour service fairs have been scheduled for January 19th, from 11:00 am to 3 pm in Northfield (location to be announced), and January 26th in Faribault from 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm (location to be announced).

Both events will start with 15 minutes presentations from representatives of the following service areas:

- Health services provided by Health Finders in Rice county.
- Legal labor and immigrant rights
- Business support systems offered by the Latino Enterprise Center, and
- Community safety through emergency preparedness, and existing community infrastructure to respond in case of emergencies.

After these introductions, representatives from each service sector will tend booths so that individuals can select the services they need and get full attention from the experts right there, or schedule appointments for more in depth consultations at a later date.

Looking past this first event and beginning in February 2008, the leadership network will start the process of undergoing a training program.  This training program will start by inviting city, school and public safety officials to train the Latino/a leadership group on practical cooperation strategies that may lead to a healthier community for all.

This plan will last up to 14 months and will include participation of leaders from different city, county and state programs.  The goal is to increase the ability of the emerging leaders to bridge a diverse number of already existing services for our communities.

The Latino Leadership network is also currently working on a brochure in Spanish to profile established service providers with competent Spanish speaking personnel in the region.  If you are one of those institutions, please send e-mail by clicking on the contact form on the upper right hand side of this page.

Our introductory brochure will go out in English to state, county and city organizations and the business and non-profit sectors. The brochure will introduce the leadership network and its highlight its unique position to bridge and facilitate integration for the Latino/a communities in the south central region of Minnesota through improved delivery of existing services through the region.

Our strategy is first, to bridge existing services and make them more accessible to our communities by establishing the links and providing the expertise needed to improve marketing, delivery and expansion.  Second, to establish the organizational and physical infrastructure so that needed services currently not offered are made available.  We will explore new services first through existing institutions, and then, by creating the institutions that may be missing from the equation.  All of this within the context of the work areas outlined above plus new areas that may be identified, and in cooperation with other agencies whenever possible.