New Routes Partnership Team with RWJF, Benton, and NPO Representatives
Our Stories, Our Health was awarded $225,000 by New Routes to Community Health, a program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Benton Foundation designed to improve the health of immigrants in the United States through media created by immigrants.
This collaboration is one of eight projects funded nationally in this three-year, $1.8 million initiative to create locally-focused media and outreach campaigns that speak directly to immigrants’ health concerns at the community level.
Elders at Video Training
Here in Philadelphia, Our Stories, Our Health is a collaborative media health initiative aiming to engage immigrant Laotian and Vietnamese seniors in the process of identifying and describing health needs through personal storytelling, video production, and discussion about health in the Southeast Asian community. A Southeast Asian Elders Council selected the topics of focus, which will be high blood pressure and doctor-patient communication. Through digital videos to be produced by elders trained under this project, Laotian and Vietnamese immigrants will their stories about personal experiences dealing with health. These videos will be incorporated into community workshops intended to encourage discussion on health disparities and communication barriers faced by immigrants. Partners are the Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Associations Coalition (SEAMAAC), University of Pennsylvania, WHYY TV12 Public Broadcasting, Thomas Jefferson University and Temple University.
Elders Learning Camera Work
“WHYY will build on its success in training family caregivers, students and retirees to record and edit their own experiences on video,” says Willo Carey, Executive Director of WHYY’s Wider Horizons service. WHYY’s Learning Lab will work with the Elders Council on this inter-generational project, and TV12 will produce short stories for the general public about the immigrant experience in health-care. The stories will be used in the training workshops, on the web and will be linked to our partners; possibly on podcast or other new digital platform.
“This project builds upon past collaborations between the University of Pennsylvania and the Asian immigrant communities of Philadelphia. We are thrilled with the excitement of the Southeast Asian elders. Following the lead of the seniors, this project focuses on high blood pressure and communication, two topics chosen by the elders. They have enthusiastically participated in the digital video training and are eager to begin creating these new health videos,” said Giang T. Nguyen, MD MPH MSCE; Assistant Professor of Family Medicine & Community Health, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; and Senior Fellow, University of Pennsylvania Center for Public Health Initiatives.
Elaine Yuen, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Health Policy for the Center of Research in Medical Education and Health Care at the Thomas Jefferson University Department of Health Policy is thrilled with her involvement in the evaluation of this project: “It has been wonderful to work with the Vietnamese and Laotian community to improve healthcare and communication.”
Elder Council
“Personal narratives are a powerful teaching and learning tool. The video stories that we create will provide a point of departure for community conversations across the city. Through dialogue, participants will not only better understand the issues of hypertension and health communication in Southeast Asian communities but also learn how to address them,” said Tina Kluetmeier, former Director of Project SHINE at the Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning.
“The program is innovative because it allows Southeast Asian refugee elders to have a direct impact on health interventions that will help them and their peers; in essence they become advocates for their own health,” said Thoai Nguyen, Executive Director of SEAMAAC.
The Our Stories, Our Health project in Philadelphia exemplifies what is happening In all eight New Routes communities, where immigrant groups, media makers and prominent community institutions are working together to produce original health-related content in immigrants’ first languages, including Amharic, Chinese, Creole, French, Lao, Somali, Spanish, Swahili and Vietnamese.
Grants were given to collaborations in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Oakland, Philadelphia and San Francisco. Using a wide range of media such as television and radio features, telenovelas, first person narratives, live theater, the Internet and social marketing campaigns, New Routes projects will map the often difficult terrain of immigrant life in the U.S.
“Immigrants are the new leaders and pathfinders on the route to the American Dream,” said Beth Mastin, National Program Director of New Routes. “Our program recognizes the challenges faced by immigrants, but we also see the opportunities they bring to renew our economy with hard work and strengthen our society with strong family and community values. Using today’s communications tools, and building leadership through collaboration with stakeholders, New Routes helps these 21st Century leaders create that American Dream.”
Media content created by the eight projects will be housed at the New Routes main website and will be available for any community to use. Additionally, the site will serve as a resource for multimedia, research and news on the topic of immigrant community health.
New Routes to Community Health is funded through The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Vulnerable Populations portfolio. The Benton Foundation provides direction and technical assistance for the program.
About The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.
About the Benton Foundation
The Benton Foundation works to ensure that media and telecommunications serve the public interest and enhance democracy. It pursues this mission by seeking policy solutions that support the values of access, diversity and equity, and by demonstrating the value of media and telecommunications for improving the quality of life for all.
