For the past two decades Familias en Acción has worked closely with Latino families and communities across the state responding to provide immediate health support, and ensuring that Latino health and well-being is front and center. We have led this work with a clear understanding that inequitable public policy, racial descrimmination, and systems that marginalize our communities only exacerbate and perpetuate recurrences of chronic illnesses, food insecurity, mental health decline in our Latino communities. Familias en Acción knows that these health inequalities, symptoms, and occurrences do not happen in a vacuum but in an environment where natural and community resources have been exploited, over extracted, and polluted by capitalist and colonial forces leading to a cycle of inequitable effects of climate change –more disproportionately affecting those with existing health and social disparities, making social justice a more accurate and very bold goal for the future of our work and Latino/x/e communities.
Familias en Acción with the support of the award from the City of Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) is excited to engage and focus our work from chronic illness support, food equity, sexual health education, and more through the implementation and framing of a Latino/x community plan for climate equity, health and resilience.
To work toward climate justice, our plan will start by centering the richness and power that our communities bring to conversations around climate and health justice.
More soon!
