American Migrant Stories from Kern County from Nueva Vista Media on Vimeo.

Videos January 11, 2018 0

VIDEO: American Migrant Stories

The Center for Social Justice Center and the Immigration Justice Collaborative Produced the film, ‘American Migrant Stories from Kern County,’ the documentary exposes the pain that families face in their search for prosperity.

The Immigration Justice Collaborative is a group of prominent local attorneys in Kern County who organize to assist immigrants in known their constitutional rights, the first of this type of collaborative in Kern. The collaborative brings in new voices and influence to the fight for social justice.

The Immigration Justice Collaborative is a group of prominent local attorneys in Kern County who organize to assist immigrants in known their constitutional rights, the first of this type of collaborative in Kern. The collaborative brings in new voices and influence to the fight for social justice.

Watch the film here: ‘American Migrant Stories from Kern County.’

“Cutting health care will hurt real families directly and hurt all of us indirectly by crushing our economy.” -- Lorena Lara of Faith in the Valley Kern

Bakersfield, Calif. – Organizations, advocates, students and families delivered a simple message during a recent press event at the Liberty Bell: health is more than health care and everyone, particularly the most vulnerable members of our community, is at risk.

As an example, residents, in partnership with Building Healthy Communities South Kern including Faith in the Valley, Dignity Health’s Community Health Initiative, Clinica Sierra Vista, Vision y Compromiso, California Partnership, say that the expansion of Medi-Cal has helped boost the regional economy by creating new jobs and providing people with basic preventative services. Specifically, in Kern County, if life-saving health coverage were to be reduced or dramatically cut, we could:

  • Lose health insurance for about 160,000 children, seniors and working family members;

  • Get rid of about 14,700 jobs and;

  • Rip about $305 million from our local economy

“We want to educate our fellow Kern County residents about what it means to create a healthy Kern County,” said Lorena Lara of Faith in the Valley Kern. “Cutting health care will hurt real families directly and hurt all of us indirectly by crushing our economy.”

Family financial stability advocates also say that the proposed changes currently being considered to our tax system would have devastating consequences for the economic health of our communities. For example, abolishing deductions for state/local taxes and itemized charitable deductions, which would sharply raise Californians’ tax bill, will hurt our capacity to invest in the things that matter most to us.

“We already know that over 80% of all donations made nationally come from individuals—not foundations or corporations,” said Jill Egland, Vice President of Community Impact, United Way of Kern County. “Those same numbers hold true for us here in Kern. Furthermore, we’re not just talking about contributions from the very wealthy. We’re talking about the bulk of charitable investment coming from working- and middle-class incomes. Reducing or abolishing these deductions? We’ll feel it here, most definitely, in our loss of ability to invest in our parks, our schools, our places of worship, our emergency relief efforts. We need to empower communities. Not cripple them.”

BHC-SK is a broad collaborative of community groups and organizations, public agencies, residents, and youth leaders who are partnering and advocating towards community and health equity in Kern’s underserved communities.                                     

###

BHC-SK Screens Documentary to Special Audience
Uncategorized December 14, 2017 0

BHC-SK Screens Documentary to Special Audience

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 14, 2017

Media Contact: Reyna Olaguez, Building Healthy Communities South Kern
(661) 817-3577, reyna@healthysouthkern.org

Hundreds of Residents Are Expected to Attend Screening of ‘American Migrant Stories’

Building Healthy Communities South Kern is proud to present a special screening of ‘American Migrant Stories’ to a special audience today at CSU Bakersfield (CSUB).

We are thrilled to present this documentary to the folks who may share a similar story to the stories told in this gripping production that exposes the pain that families face in their search for prosperity.

BHC-SK will be busing in residents from Delano, McFarland, Arvin, Lamont, Weedpatch and Greenfield to watch this riveting documentary produced by CSU Bakersfield’s Center for Social Justice with financial support from BHC-SK.

The community is welcome to attend this free screening today, Dec. 14 at CSU Bakersfield’s Dore Theatre, 9000 Stockdale Hwy. in Bakersfield, CA at 6:30 p.m. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with local attorney’s David Torres, H.A. Sala, Win Eaton, Xochitl Garcia and Bakersfield Chief of Police, Lyle Martin.

BHC-SK is a broad collaborative of community groups and organizations, public agencies, residents, and youth leaders who are partnering and advocating towards community and health equity in Kern’s underserved communities.

###

BHC South Kern Kicks Off Cross-Collaboration Series
stories December 5, 2017 0

BHC South Kern Kicks Off Cross-Collaboration Series

 
Photo above: Jack Becker (Program Manager at Bike Arvin and Bike Bakersfield), Alex Gonzalez (Organizer at Faith in Kern), Bill Phelps (Chief of Program Services at Clinica Sierra Vista) and Elizabeth Martinez (Healthy Policy Organizer at the Dolores Huerta Foundation)
 
Building Healthy Communities South Kern partners attended the inaugural Cross-Collaboration Breakfast on October 20, spending the morning identifying the places Action Teams can support each other and increase their reach.
Uncategorized December 5, 2017 0

Roots of Resistance: Central California Environmental Justice Network

The Central California Environmental Justice Network (CCEJN) held bi-annual Roots of Resistance Conference on October 21 at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center. The conference included workshops and trainings from nonprofit and community leaders.

“The purpose of this conference is to showcase the environmental justice victories from Fresno and Kern Counties, as well as an in-depth analysis of the struggles and resistance efforts in Southern San Joaquin Valley,” said Gustavo Aguirre, Jr. of CCEJN and the Kern Environmental Enforcement Network (KEEN).

Nearly 200 people attended the conference which included speakers from the Committee for a Better Arvin who spoke about their work to enforce pesticide drift buffer zones around schools, and implementing resident-based air quality monitoring technology.

After such a successful Roots of Resistance Conference, Aguirre hopes to continue the momentum and energy created back to South Kern, starting with young leaders in South Kern.

"There are 41,000 registered voters between 18-24 years old in Kern County and only 19,000 voted in the 2016 general election."

Reyna Olaguez, South Kern Sol

In mid-November, three youth from South Kern Sol had the opportunity to travel to Austin,Texas to participate in Voto Latino’s 10th Annual Power Summit. The youth, Marisol Sanchez, 17, Veronica Morley, 21, and Yesenia Aguilar, 19, heard from national figures like Maria Teresa Kumar, Voto Latino’s President and CEO, as well as the former Secretary of Housing and Development, Julian Castro– who announced during the summit. that he is considering a run for president in 2020.

Voto Latino brought together nearly 500 youth leaders from Texas and several other states to empower and teach them about the importance of being civically engaged in their communities.

“Even if you are 17 or if you are undocumented and cannot vote- we all know someone who can and we need to make sure they get out to the polls on election day,” said Kumar during her welcome address.

“The take away message was that when communities stand together and vote, communities will rise up and be stronger,” said Reyna Olaguez, South Kern Sol’s Executive Director, who also attended the event. “In Kern and across the nation the reality is that youth are registering to vote, but very few are actually going to the polls on election day and this needs to change in order to change our communities for the better.”

“There are 41,000 registered voters between 18-24 years old in Kern County and only 19,000 voted in the 2016 general election. Out of those, 53 percent are Latino but only 44 percent voted. Youth participation lags behind older voters about 13 to 15 percent,” said Olaguez who added that there are about 365,000 registered voters in Kern.

"We are training parents and residents to become leaders with the tools to advocate for discipline reforms at school board meetings and to run for school board."

Gerald Cantu, Dolores Huerta Foundation

After parents in the Mojave Unified School District reached out to the Dolores Huerta Foundation for help in addressing the racial disparities in school suspensions, Building Healthy Communities South Kern’s Kern Education Justice Collaborative partners began their work to find a solution to the extreme suspension and expulsion rates for students of color in the district. Outdated disciplinary practices remove students from the classroom and allow these same students to fall behind in school.

In a series of education justice op-eds in The Bakersfield Californian, Gerald Cantu, Education Policy Director at the Dolores Huerta Foundation, cites that students of color across Kern are pushed out of schools through disciplinary practices, as brought to light in recent the Kern High School District settlement. Mojave Unified School District has the highest rate of suspensions in the county, with approximately 41% of student body suspended between 2014 and 2015, the majority of whom were black. Despite being a minority in the district, black students were expelled two times more than their white and Latino counterparts.

BHC-SK asked Cantu to tell us how this campaign will look like in Mojave.

“As we begin our work in Mojave Unified, we intend to apply the lessons learned through our years-long efforts at Kern High School District, where we worked with parents to advocate for adoption and faithful implementation of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports and restorative justice practices, training on implicit bias, and a diverse staff representative of the student body,” Cantu states.

“We are training parents and residents to become leaders with the tools to advocate for discipline reforms at school board meetings and to run for school board. It’s going to mean progress towards the dismantling of the school-to-prison pipeline for students of color. Two school board trustees will be up for election in 2018, and we intend to hold candidate forums where parents and community members will have an opportunity to ask questions of the candidates.”

Read more from Gerald Cantu in The Bakersfield Californian here.

stories December 1, 2017 0

New Law Bans Farmers From Using Pesticides Near Schools, Advocates Say More Needs To Be Done

In October, the California Environmental Protection Agency approved a plan to enforce pesticide buffer zones statewide. Our partners say that while this is a great step forward there is still more work needed to protect our children.

The new regulations cover most school hours, but advocates say the rule doesn’t consider after school or weekend activities held at schools, or the fact that pesticide drift remains in school grounds and on top of classrooms long after spraying.

“We advocated for some stronger regulations because pesticide drift doesn’t stop after class is over. The rule to limit pesticide use near schools from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.window is an improvement, but still not good enough,” said Valerie Gorospe of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment and a member of Californian’s for Pesticide Reform. “We plan to keep pushing for more protections going forward, but this is a step in the right direction.”

Read more from South Kern Sol here: Long Awaited Rule Limiting Pesticide Use Near Schools.