Caring Support for New Arrivals

Mariana Gonzales is a community health worker (CHW) and public health student working with the Southeast Arizona Health Education Center’s (SEAHEC) Vacunas para Todos (“Vaccines for all”) project. Gonzales spends several afternoons each week at the Casa Alitas shelter in Tucson, Arizona, to provide COVID-19 education and additional support to newly arrived migrant families, connecting them with services and care. In late 2021, Gonzales met a mother of three recently arrived from Peru who was devastated by the recent separation from her older son and husband at the U.S.-Mexico border. Her blood pressure had spiked under the constant stress, requiring her to be hospitalized. The mother’s two younger children – a 14-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son – had to stay behind at the shelter, and they worried about their mother’s condition and possible complications due to her diabetes. Gonzales and other CHWs helped console the children until their mother’s return, and they successfully advocated for the removal of an ankle monitor she returned with (used in the United States to ensure people applying for political asylum appear for court hearings) due to her health conditions. “People continue to flee violence and poverty throughout our hemisphere,” said Gail Emrick, Executive Director of SEAHEC. “The role of our community health workers, CHWs or "promotores de salud" as they are also known, is invaluable. They work quietly, humbly, providing the human connection and dignity that all of us need, but so many health systems lack. They truly are a lifeline of hope for the people we serve.”