This past week, I loved the discussion on media advocacy in class. Specially after the kilbourne video. I think i have always been a media critic, ever since my mom told me that commercials were most likely not there for my own personal benefit, but for the benefit of those capitalizing from my consumerism. I also enjoyed the discussion about media advocacy and what elements are needed in order to make it so. The assigned reading was on of my favorites so far. I am a big supporter of societal change, as opposed to the sole individual.

health literacy

last week we saw a video on health literacy in our health communication class. It reminded me of the time when I was a kid and didn't read or speak English and because we lived close to the border and medicine was sometimes cheaper in the US my mom would buy them here. I remember reading "translated" labels that were so confusing. I specifically remember a bottle of aspirin that seemed to say not to take while being asleep?? This seemed funny to me. But it shed light on the faults of translating and the possible problems that more dangerous medicine could have on an individual if labels were written in this manner. This topic also hit home on a campaign that i was part of inside of juvenile hall in San Francisco, were we found the need to transcribe all materials related to the health of youth there into six different languages. Materials had been only in English and bad Spanish since their doors opened more than 20 years ago! Incredible

Lost My Job

So as you can tell form my last post, I used to work for a youth council here in San Diego. It is under the umbrella of a policy panel which carried with it 4 main components. Youth Advocacy, community organizing and law enforcement. I worked for the Youth advocacy component of course. When I first became interested in the position I was very clear with myself but somewhat unclear with staff members about my stance regarding the "youth and drinking law enforcement task force". Problems came when I was asked to participate in a ceremony where police officers were going to be awarded for their service in this arena. I declined to participate and everything kinda snowballed from there. This "stance" is not an I hate cops thing, or I hate authority. This is the reality of the disproportionate amount of alcohol abuse in our economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of color and the lack of preventive measures and justice in those communities. Theres 4 liquor stores a in two block radius from my house. No parks. No community centers. Lighting is limited. What we do have, is an abundance of cops.

"My Kid Hates Me"

I'm working on a campaign targeting parents and their parenting styles regarding underage drinking. Parents addressing the drinking of their kids can be a taboo subject, or they might not want to break harmony by being an uncool mom or dad. This is what my kids said at the San Diego Youth Council said!! Through this council and of course grant, we are devising a campaign that will include t-shirts and stickers that say "My Kid Hates Me" and on the back "For all the Right Reasons" followed by top five reasons why kids shouldn't drink. What do yo u think?. Any suggestions on the top five reasons?


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El Centro

I just came back from el Centro Ca, where I, together with a team from the BACH or Center for Behavioral and Community Health Studies are doing focus groups with Latino families regarding exercise and eating habits. I'm the newest member of the team and today was my first day. Besides the novice factor, I had some really annoying technical difficulties with the recording gadgets that made it even more interesting. Guess that was my right of passage.

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