State CYFAR Program Spotlight

Voz de la Familia, Georgia

When Voz de la Familia started in Colquitt County, Georgia, in 2003, its scope was discrete: an after-school program that would keep youth safe while their parents, migrant farm workers, were in the field. Before long, it was expanded to include parenting education and other programs to improve outcomes for those youth. Eighteen months later, a series of shocking crimes brought the need for the program into sharp focus.

Voz de la Familia has expanded, but still includes an after-school
program with fun activities, such as making modeling clay.

Soon after getting CYFAR funding in 2003, it had become clear to State Project Director Sharon Gibson and Community Project Director Debbie Purvis that the program must grow along with the population it served. Colquitt County is an agricultural area with a long growing season and a highly diversified range of about 100 different crops. During the past 10-15 years, more and more migrant farm workers have settled in the county, taking other jobs during the short off-season in order to remain there. The 2000 census records a Hispanic population of 10% in the county of 44,800 people; 2005 census estimates put the population at 14% Hispanic.

A majority of the Spanish speakers come from Mexico, with many of the rest Cuban. Gibson and State Family Development Specialist Don Bower identified a number of common risk factors among this group, such as a high rate of type 2 diabetes and obesity, a lack of adequate housing, and a lack of knowledge of the US banking and savings system.

To improve conditions for the youth they served, Voz de la Familia expanded to include classes in health education and parenting students, both in Spanish. CYFAR worked together with the Family Connection Partnership, local school systems, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension and the Ellenton Farm Workers Health Clinic. “We were building a basic support system,” Gibson said.

The day before a planned community housing fair in October 2004, a series of terrible crimes occurred that shook the community—several Latinos were murdered in their homes while being robbed. The perpetrators had apparently known that their victims kept cash at home because they didn’t use banks. Having established trust among the Latino community, and with programs in place to provide connections among Spanish speakers and to historical residents of Colquitt County, the CYFAR team now began to offer basic financial literacy training to encourage these residents to become “banked”.

In the aftermath of these crimes, knowing the good relationship that Voz de la Familia had established with the Latino community, the local police chief contacted the program to ask for liaison. Purvis and staff members organized listening sessions in which police officials explained how to report a crime and encouraged questions on a broad range of city services and problems within the Latino community.

In the five years of the CYFAR New Communities grant, Voz de la Familia has built on its original objective and responded to community needs. “It’s not what we planned in the beginning,” Gibson said. “It was going to be parenting information and health and nutrition. But we had to go back to Nayda (Torres, the CYFAR liaison) and Sherri (Wright, CYFAR national program leader) and say, 'This thing has grown and we have to adapt’.” Among its many activities, the program:

• Runs a home-based education group, Grupo de las Madres, that educates and trains mothers on topics such as home maintenance, child health, pesticides and laundry, car seats and other topics they bring up.
• Conducts health screenings such as blood pressure checks and gives diet advice and referrals.
• Offers financial counseling that has helped at least 17 Latino families get mortgages and buy houses in the area.
• Employs two members of the Latino community as half-time staff members. Mailyn Perez and Luz Cooper are community project coordinators who also work for CSREES’s Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program.
• Helps to organize the annual National Night Out, a block party event intended to deter crime and build community spirit.

Community Project Coordinator Mailyn Perez (left) does an in-home
food demonstration with a family in Colquitt County.

Together with partners, Voz de la Familia has also run a leadership program for high-potential county residents that reached out to non-traditional leaders. The leadership class recruited a wide variety of trainees – young adults in their 20s up to retirement age; Latinos, Whites and Blacks; people with Ph.Ds and some without high school diplomas. What they had in common was a quality that made people in their communities turn to them for help. This program taught basic leadership and organizing skills and encouraged civic engagement and cross-ethnic cooperation.

Although many bridges have been built, newcomers continue to arrive, and Voz de la Familia continues to offer the basic life skills training that it started out doing. Purvis said the home visits continue to be important to both program and community. “Home visitation is where the trust is built,” she said.

With the end of the five-year grant last month, the program is sustained by multiple sources, including the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, which will fund the two community project coordinators on a year-to-year basis. Gibson and Purvis said they appreciated the flexibility of the CYFAR grant in helping them respond to the community as the needs were identified. Gibson is pleased at the strides taken to bring a group of newcomers and migrants into the county’s mainstream. “A powerful point is that these participants are becoming leaders in their community,” Gibson said.

You may wish to consult:

Voz de la Familia Web site

Housing Opportunities for Families: Developing Community Partnerships with a Focus on Home Sustainability, a CYFAR 2008 conference presentation.

See previous Program Spotlight articles