Alianza Americas Latinx Essential Workers as Health Promoters- Leveraging trusted community leaders to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate impacts among Latinx, and Latin American immigrants - Alianza Americas, a network of Latin American immigrant-led and immigrant-serving organizations, will leverage its niche as a trusted broker of information and capacity-building in Latinx immigrant communities, to connect and engage hard-to-reach communities, including Afro-Latino, Temporary Protected Status Holders, and essential workers in key sectors: domestic workers, farmworkers, food and service-sector workers who are disproportionately affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic and would be at-risk for future infectious disease emergencies. Alianza Americas' purpose is to engage the strengths and expertise of our membership and build their capacity in order to ensure preventative information and strategies are used to help mitigate the spread the of COVID-19 in Latinx and immigrant communities. Alianza Americas members will engage in outreach and dissemination of CDC guidance, and provide important feedback that will enable the Alianza team to adapt and improve educational materials and provided meaningful feedback to the CDC, municipal authorities, health departments, and other partners. Alianza Americas will train and build capacity among key members who can serve as “promotores” both at the local level, targeting specific populations, and serving as a resource for the entire network. Other members, with specific cultural competencies (such as indigenous languages, traditional and non-traditional media; arts and graphics; mental health, etc) will be engaged as service providers with the goal of building the capacity of the entire network to respond to current and future public health challenges, including the ongoing challenge of COVID-19 and potential future infectious disease crises By collecting data on the populations reached, and best practices used, Alianza will develop strategies that can be adapted to for future health crises. Alianza Americas is a US 501(c)3 registered charitable organization with headquarters in Chicago, IL, and a national reach that extends into Latin American immigrant communities in 14 states and the district of Columbia. With a lean and agile professional team working at the national level, Alianza Americas is able to leverage and amplify the shared capacity of its network of member organizations-- grassroots and community-based groups working on health care, education, immigrant integration, legal services, housing, disability rights, worker protections, and other issues. Our network represents more than 150,000 families directly, with an outreach capacity of more than one million. Our dues-paying, immigrant-led organizational members are trusted messengers in Latinx and immigrant communities. Our membership includes a strong Garífuna presence (black Central Americans) as well as indigenous organizations from Mexico, youth-led groups, farmworkers, women's organizations, disability and LGBTI community groups. Indigenous and Garífuna members expand our ability to connect in languages beyond Spanish and English.
