La Plaza Central

We here at El Centro love words whether they’re in English or Español, but we also understand that pictures are what “bring things home” for people.  With that in mind, we’re rolling out a photo gallery that will be included in the website very shortly.  We’re working on how to incorporate it into the main website, but blog readers can get a sneak preview here.  Let us know what you think.  I get the feeling that people want to know more about what it is that we actually do here, and these photo albums from some our programs should give a clearer picture than the two sentences each they get on the website.  Like Brent mentioned, we are working on some videos for the near future, so prepare yourselves.

Bonus:  What was Bill Cosby’s pen’s name?

(Free El Centro pamphlets to the winner.)

Update: Sorry, the photos weren’t published until just now.  I also added some photos from the last session of Saludos a la Buena Salud last night complete with health screenings by nurses from the County Health Department.  We apologize for the inconvenience.

This is for the one person who selected News from Latin America in the poll.  It is Fareed Zakaria’s interview with former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo on GPS from yesterday.  I don’t agree with all he says, but Zedillo is a pretty smart economist, and I like this interview for his discussion on the Mexican financial crisis in the 90′s compared with the current situation in the United States.

Part 1

Part 2

I have been forgetting to mention this for awhile now, but with the help of Brent and KZUM 89.3 Community Radio El Centro has written, produced and starred in a few public service announcements.  You can listen for them on KZUM 89.3 Community Radio during their Spanish language programs.  Check the list on their website for complete programming information or see below for the short list.

Sundays from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. – Ritmo Latino

Mondays from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. – Buenos Tangos

Wednesdays from 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. – Lo Mejor de Brasil

Saturdays from 12:30 – 2:30 p.m. – Mundo Latino

KZUM offeres streaming online for those who believed The Buggles and got rid of their radios.

For the last few weeks I’ve been taping interviews of our staff and board members plus a few outreach program attendees— all for a piece I’m stitching together for our website and perhaps to show at our fundraising gala(s).

Rousing answers from stock questions about missions (personal ones and El Centro’s) gave me insight on a philosophy shared by all of us involved here: non-profit equals passion. Everyone with whom I spoke had a melting pot dream. A year ago we came a step closer by moving to the Malone Center. Let’s see if we can’t continue the trend next year.

El Centro offers translation and interpretation services, as described on our website, but sometimes it happens that our clients call and want a quick translation on the spot.  It’s usually something simple like they want to change time of their Dr.’s appointment or the sink is leaking and they want to tell the maintenance department, etc.  But I received a call last week from a client who was standing next to her boss and wanted to quit her job.  She also had some requests like she wanted her last day to be November 30th and that if her boss wanted she could work an occasional Sunday only from 8:00 am to noon.  So without pause she told me this and handed the phone to him, and I had to announce that the proverbial “we” were quitting.  Needless to say it was awkward on both sides of the table, and he almost had trouble believing me that she really wanted to quit.  I listed for him her requests, and apologized for the unusual situation and then he did the same and that was it.  It made me think that I have only quit a few jobs in my life.  In a few instances it was an extremely stressful experience for me because I was a little uncertain and I am adverse to change and I was worried about what my boss would say.  But quitting for this woman was a piece of cake.  It was like a practice round, or dying in Bubble Bobble, the game that lets you continue infinitely, in that it doesn’t count.  So if anyone else needs to resign soon, you give me a call at the office, and we’ll see what “we” can do.

So Brent and I have been giving a series of health charlas at a local Hispanic church for the last seven weeks that focus on eating better, exercising more and preventing diabetes.  El Centro received a grant awhile back to work on diabetes prevention in Latino adults, and after a few false starts and rewrites we finally got it off the ground and it has been going pretty well.  Diabetes prevention is an extremely important health topic here because Latinos are more than twice as likely to suffer from the disease than caucasians.  With these charlas (discussions) we are attempting to focus on the causes and precursors to the illness.  Obesity and poor diet (read lots of sugar, fats and oils) and sedentary lifestyles generally lead to problems later in life.

Anyway, that is the idea for the classes in a nutshell, but last night we had an extra 20 minutes to kill at the end of the session, so I pulled out an old Peace Corps activity.  I used to do this with teenagers, so I was nervous as to whether or not the adults would take to the activity, but my fears proved unwarranted.  The activity was about planning and acting.  Students form groups of six or seven people and they are given five straws, a tiny piece of masking tape, a piece of scratch paper and 10 minutes to plan a building made of straws.  The goal is to make the building as tall as possible.  At the end of 10 minutes, each group receives 35 more straws and a long piece of masking tape, and they have just five minutes to build their building.  What almost inevitable happens is that most groups play with the five straws and tape for a few minutes, don’t draw anything, and then sit around for seven or eight minutes just waiting for the building phase to start.  And then when they receive the 35 straws and start building there is confusion and everyone feels like five minutes is not nearly enough time, and out of maybe seven groups there is only one or two groups who have a building that can even stand on its own.

This activity comes from a small business class that I taught in Peace Corps where the purpose was to show the students that they have lots of time to plan for the future, be it a business or going to college or whatever their goals may be, so that when it comes time to act they are ready.  But this is not how I explained it at the health class last night.  About a month ago in our health charlas, we introduced writing action plans where people wrote out several health goals, such as losing five pounds in a month or exercising three times a week for the next two months or drinking only two sodas a week, and plans for how they would acheive their goals.  So last night when it came time to review them it was obvious that most people had not stuck to their goals and hadn’t followed their plans it was a perfect segue into my activity on planning.  The point that I tried to get across was that planning for the future is something that seems very easy and often unnecessary (sitting around for eight minutes and waiting for more straws and tape) but it is something that we all need to work on.  It’s a skill that we aren’t born with but must acquire over time through education and experience.

[Stepping down from the soapbox]  So there is a little blip about last night’s health class.  Now time to prepare for today’s computer literacy class.  Que tengan un hermoso día.

Update: For those who are interested and know a little Spanish, I attached the Powerpoint presentations we created for the first few sessions.

Sesión 1

Sesión 2

El Centro needs you.  As the deadline for Toys for Tots approaches, we have more than 500 children signed up to receive presents.  The gifts are to arrive on December 17th and we will have until our annual Christmas party on December 22nd from 3:00 to 8:00 p.m. to wrap them.  That gives us about three days, not including the weekend.  If there is any chance you can help us wrap gifts, please let us know with the form below.  We will be wrapping presents from noon until 8:00 p.m. on the 17th and from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. the 18th and 19th.  El Centro will provide some refreshments and good music.  Muchísimas gracias!

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