Sandra Alvarado is in her mid-twenties and married to a farm labor crew leader. She is Mexican American, bilingual and has participated in the North Carolina Salud Para Todos Program for two years. Although she had a position of leadership and respect within the camp due to her husband’s role, Sandra earned the confidence and trust of her fellow workers by laboring with them in the fields. She relates to the workers well and makes an effort to let them know that she cares about them.
Sandra became a Promotora in the Salud Para Todos Program because she wanted to help farmworkers obtain some of the basic necessities they often do without. The overwhelming number of hours farmworkers labor in the fields each day reinforced her motivation to help her coworkers manage the stress in their lives. Sandra said that Salud Para Todos gave her the training and resources she needed to provide appropriate information and guidance on mental health issues. Her eagerness to help inspires others and has clearly made an impact. During her first group education session on stress, Sandra demonstrated so much enthusiasm for understanding, preventing and treating stress that farmworkers lined up for referrals despite temperatures in the high nineties. Even after the meeting was over, Sandra took extra time to address the farmworkers’ questions.In her own words, Sandra reflects upon her work as a Promotora in the Salud Para Todos Program:
“I had a good time doing encounters with the people in my camp. This is my second year being a Promotora, and I always try to do the best that I can to help them. But out of all my encounters, I had one that really touched me. I wanted to make a difference in a person’s life.
“This person was an alcoholic, and he would drink all the time for so many different reasons. He would get very depressed because of his family being far away and him having no way to communicate with them. So, this would drive him to drink a lot, and all the money that he would make at work, he would use it to buy beer and just drink until he was drunk. So one day I told him that he needed to make a change and stop the drinking. He was never going to make any money to send to his kids, and that way he was never going to see them again. So we got together and I read to him about alcoholism and that it could hurt his body.
“On a Sunday, I arranged for him to go to the church with some of the other guys, and he did so. When he came back he said that for some reason at church he felt peace. I asked him to give me the name of the town or city where he lived, and he did so. I asked some of the other guys in my camp if they knew him or if they were from around the same area. So yes I did find someone, and that someone gave me a telephone number. So, we contacted his family, and after about a week he got to talk to his wife and kids. Now he talks to them every week, and the drinking has stopped. I have learned that a little communication makes a world of difference to people.”