Multicultural Calendar
| DECEMBER |
| 10 | Human Rights Day |
| 12 | Fiesta de Guadalupe (Mexico) |
| 16-24 | Posadas Navideñas |
| 25 | Christmas |
| 26 | Kwanzaa |
| 29 | Wounded Knee Massacre |
| 31 | New Year's Eve |
JANUARYCervical Cancer Awareness Month |
| 1 | New Year's Day |
| 1 | Emancipation Proclamation |
| 6 | Three Kings Day |
| 20 | Martin Luther King, Jr. Day |
FEBRUARYAfrican American History Month |
| 1 | New Year (Vietnam, Chinese, Korea) |
| 12 | Eid al-Adha (Islam)
The Feast of Sacrifice |
| 14 | Valentine's Day |
| 17 | Presidents Day |
| 19 | Start of Japanese internment |
| 24 | Flag Day (Mexico) |
| 27 | Occupation Wounded Knee |
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A Step-By Step Process To Develop Partnerships
- Develop memorandums of understanding.
Define roles of each partner.
Establish TRUST.
TRUST and get to know each
partner.
Provide background information on each
organization to all partners.
Develop skills & attitudes necessary for success:
Believe in the value of each organization
& the value of working together.
Establish a trusting relationship through
actual experience.
Develop a shared mission, goals, &
achievable objectives.
Build necessary negotiating skills:
Know how to work on common issues.
Encourage openness to explore noncommon
ground & problems that may
exist between the two organizations. Be
comfortable with differences between
the groups.
Improve listening skills that will enable
each organization to hear the needs of
the other.
- Arrange productive meetings.
MODEL good communication & collaboration skills.
Give appropriate credit.
- Involve leaders & get community "buy-in".
- Devote time to the planning process.
- Set up mechanisms to handle disagreements.
- Evaluate efforts continually.
- Stop ineffective efforts and focus strongly on efforts that work.
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GUIDING PRINCIPLES
Make PLANNING a priority
- Know yourself and your partners
- Appreciate your strengths and the strengths of your partners
- Utilize the strength of partners
- Commit to SHARED leadership
"The events which transpired five thousand years ago; Five years ago or five minutes ago, have determined what will happen five minutes from now; five years From now or five thousand years from now. All history is a current event."
- Dr John Henrik Clarke
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Newsletter for BCC Educators - Winter 2002
Print-version (pdf)
CERVICAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH
January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. During this month, you may want to highlight issues related to cervical cancer. Share personal stories about families and women battling cervical cancer issues. Here are some suggestions and guidelines that you may find useful.
The National Cervical Cancer Coalition (NCCC) has press releases and "print" public service announcements available.
Contact information: (818) 909-3849 or email to info@nccc-online.org.
Sample Public Education Timeline
- December, 2002
- Send copy of public service announcements to radio station managers.
Follow-up with a phone call.
- Send press release to all print and broadcast reporters.
- Begin follow-up phone calls to all reporters to urge coverage of cervical cancer.
- January, 2003
Work with local media who plan to cover cervical cancer awareness activities
in your community.
- Re-send press releases and public service announcements to all media contacts,
and follow-up with phone calls.
- Send any press releases announcing specific local events relating to Cervical
Health Awareness Month
- February, 2003
- Collect all print articles and written transcripts of broadcast and radio mentions
- Send thank-you notes to those reporters you worked with to thank them for
covering cervical cancer. Ensure that they have your contact information, should
they cover the topic again.
Cancer Education in Español:
The National Center of Farmworker Health has created a tool called "Cultivando
La Salud". The breast and cervical cancer education materials includes a training curriculum, Spanish language video, flipchart, program model, and bilingual teaching guide.
They also have a comprehensive cancer curriculum designed to
train promotoras. For details, you can contact Alicia Gonzales
@1-800-531-5120 ext. 5459 or gonzales@ncfh.org.
IN THE NEWS
American Cancer Society (ACS) Releases New Cervical Cancer Early Detection Guidelines
On November 14, ACS issued new guidelines addressing when and how often women should have a Pap test to find early signs of cervical cancer.
Under the new recommendations, most women would begin Pap screening later, have an option to stop at a certain age (70 years) and be exempt from screening entirely if they have had a hysterectomy.
Some of the new guidelines include:
- Pap tests should begin approximately three years after a woman begins having
vaginal intercourse, but no later than 21 years of age.
- At or after age 30, women who have had three normal test results in a row may get screened every two to three years. A doctor may suggest getting the test more often if a woman has certain risk factors such as HIV infection or a weakened immune system.
- Women 70 years of age and older who have had three or more normal Pap test results and no abnormal results in the last 10 years may choose to stop cervical cancer screening.
- Screening after a total hysterectomy (with removal of the cervix) is not necessary unless the surgery was done as a treatment for cervical cancer or precancer.
Visit the ACS website for more details.
HPV 16 Vaccine
An experimental vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV) type 16, the virus responsible for about
50% of all cervical cancer cases has proven to be 100% effective in preventing HPV infection and the development of cervical cancer. The vaccine will not be available to the public for
a few years. A successful vaccine could drastically reduce rates of cervical cancer, which affects 470,000 women a year worldwide and kills 225,000. In the United States, there are 13,000 cases a year and 4,100 deaths.
The Merck company made the vaccine and paid for the research. The vaccine described today was made to test whether people could be made immune to only one type of the cancer-causing virus, which causes 50 percent of cervical cancers.
Merck is already testing a new version designed to work against multiple virus types, preventing 70 percent of cervical cancers, but it will not be ready for several years. The vaccine, given in three shots over six months, can be used to prevent cervical cancer but will not be able to treat it. As a preventive, it will be most successful if it is given to girls and young women before they become sexually active.
Most deaths from cervical cancer occur in developing countries where women do not have regular Pap tests, which can detect abnormal growths early so they can be removed before they turn cancerous. In the US, where 50 million to 60 million Pap tests are done every year, a great benefit of a vaccine would be a significant drop in the number of women who, because of
the virus, have abnormal Pap tests and then need repeated examinations and tests to look for cancer.
Most of the abnormalities will not turn cancerous, but it is hard to predict which ones will, so all must be monitored. By preventing the infections and abnormal growths, a vaccine
could spare close to a million women a year the worry, expense and unpleasant procedures. Cost
savings could be in the billions.
INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
From the desk of Ederlinda
The Holidays are among us. I want to thank everyone for the wonderful welcome into the BCC family. And, that is what we are. We are indeed a family of caring individuals teaming together to achieve a common goal: to reduce death rates of breast & cervical cancer by educating our communities about the importance of early detection of these cancers and providing screening and diagnostic services.
One of the key ways for us to work with our communities effectively is to share common values. One value that we can all draw upon is the importance of family. Family is a powerful tool. For medically underserved populations, it can serve as an avenue by which you build a trusting and positive relationship that can lead to behavior change.
I invite you to make a commitment to becoming culturally literate. Consider what it would mean for you to connect with and relate to a "hard to reach" woman. Help create a family vision with her and her family and draw from their long lineage of resiliency. Allow the family to make informed choices and to problem-solve together.
 I wish all of you a safe and joyous holiday season.
In the spirit of Aloha,
Ederlinda Ortiz-Clawson
SKILL BUILDING: COLLABORATION
Collaboration is "the process by which several agencies or organizations make a formal, sustained commitment to work together to accomplish a common mission or develop a specific project. Collaboration requires a commitment to participate in shared decision making and allocation of resources related to activities responding to mutually identified needs. Unlike other interagency efforts, collaborations are always initiated for very specific purpose, and directed toward a tangible, measurable outcomes, e.g., producing model projects" (American Cancer Society 1993, p.23).
So what did you think?
Feedback/Needs/Thoughts/Comments/Ideas
Contact Ederlinda @ (503) 731-4273
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