To reduce inequities and improve the health and resilience of Indigenous Mixtec and Zapotec farmworkers living in California and Oaxaca, Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Puente) and Solidaridad Internacional Kanda (SiKanda) joined a binational initiative in 2024. This initiative leverages the knowledge and participation of the communities themselves in creating solutions.
Twenty thousand indigenous immigrants live and work in Ventura County, which includes Oxnard, one of California’s most important agricultural hubs
Puente a la Salud Comunitaria (Puente) and Solidaridad Internacional Kanda (SiKanda) join this initiative led from the United States by the NGO´s Public Health Institute Center for Wellness and Nutrition (PHI CWN) and the Mixteco / Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP), with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Soil erosion of the Mixtec region’s ancestral farmlands and economic opportunities have attracted Mixtecos to California in search of agricultural work, contributing their hard-working and profitable labor to the county’s economic success since the 1970s.
Concentrated in agricultural sectors of row crops (strawberries and raspberries) and cut flowers, their back-breaking work makes fresh fruits and vegetables available to the public.
However, they themselves live in a context that limits their access to healthy food. Moreover, their migrant status makes them vulnerable to a host of situations that violate their human and labor rights, particularly detrimental to women (in terms of gender).
The partnerships participating in the Unidad Ñuu Savi project seek to link indigenous populations and community-based organizations serving indigenous populations in the United States and Mexico; foster engagement and cross-learning to generate local solutions to long-standing challenges; co-design, test and document approaches to convene indigenous communities and partners in the United States and Mexico.
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