Mental Health United States Project #52385

CARE - Community Alliance for Resilience & Equity

by Acupuncturists Without Borders

Project Report | Jan 13, 2022
Helping Those Who Feed Us

By Stephanie Alvarez | Director of Development

Our New Logo!

Dear Friends,

2021 was an exciting and challenging year for the US and for Santa Cruz County. In March of 2021, our organizations came together to respond to the health needs of farmworkers and communities previosuly affected by wildfires throughout Santa Cruz. What started off as a project of just a few monthly clinics to make integrative health services accessible to people who really need them (like a farmworker being able to access chiropractic services to help relieve pain caused by the hard physical work they carry out in the fields), has grown into a full-fledged collaborative.

While our grassroots organizations have been around for many years now, we are still surprised by the power of people coming together to help one another. This winter season, we are preparing for the spring and summer. We have been looking over our data collected over the past year from the clinics we carried out to assess impact and see where we can improve. We are also actively looking for support in order to meet our fundraising goals for the clinics this year. We would like to thank everyone who has supported this work these past few months. Your support, from donations to messages of encouragement keep us going! We deeply appreciate you!

In the next report we hope to bring you some great updates from our Watsonville clinic alongside the Center for Farmworker Families! For now, we send you energy for a restorative and reenergizing winter season.

Thank you,
Stephanie and the CARE Team

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Sep 15, 2021
Community Building

By Stephanie Alvarez | Director of Development

Dear Friend,

We at Acupuncturists Without Borders, Livity Rising and IHAN are incredibly grateful for your support these past few months. Our young project continues to grow and we are now begining to consolidate a good number of regular clinics, community buy-in and local partnerships in Santa Cruz County.

CARE - Community Alliance for Resilience & Equity is a collaborative project led by Livity Rising - Holistic Wellness Services, Acupuncturists Without Borders (AWB) and Integrative Healers Action Network (IHAN). Our consortium of community service organizations provide stress and trauma relief care for building resilience in communities affected by disasters, environmental devastation, poverty and social injustice. We believe that physical and mental health are interconnected and should be addressed together to achieve better health outcomes in the communities we serve.

Chronic stress and trauma are on the rise in Watsonville and its surrounding areas. Farmworker communities have continued to work throughout the COVID-19 pandemic - helping maintain food security for millions across the US. They have been disproportionately affected by wildfires in recent years, high COVID infection rates, and inadequate access to quality health and mental health care as depression rates continue to increase across the country.

Undocumented migrant farmworkers face an even higher risk when it comes to access to mental health services due to their migratory status. CARE, in partnership with the Center for Farmworker Families, have launched an initiative to carry out integrative health clinics once per month, providing chiropractic services, massage therapy and acupuncture for pain and stress relief. These trauma-informed services are highly beneficial for individuals who engage in manual work and are used to help people regulate their nervous system, which leads to better overall health outcomes.

Our main purpose is to provide healing and care to vulnerable and historically underserved communities. We work to understand, address and heal trauma, and its effects on the daily lives of people and communities at large. Our clinics for the farmworker population seek to increase access to vital and effective integrative medicine services and promote practices to increase life quality within this vulnerable population group.

To date, we have provided over 300 treatments and reached more than 250 individuals, with many benefitting from regular treatments at our farmworker clinics. With your help, we hope to continue regularly providing services in the Watsonville area and to be prepared to respond to disaster situations throughout Santa Cruz County in the coming months.

From the depths of our hearts, Thank you!

Sincerely,

Stephanie Alvarez

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