Helping Immigrant Families Respond to COVID-19 Pandemic 

With help from a generous grant funded by The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, LATIN-19 joined La Semilla, El Futuro, Latino Community Development Center, and El Vinculo Hispano, in launching the Latino Pandemic Response Collaborative.

We were proud to join a partnership of five Latinx-founded and Latinx-led organizations across North Carolina who immediately marshalled their resources at the start of the pandemic to address the systematic exclusion from health, financial, and social support networks. Our organizations reflect the communities we serve, and are the ones our community trusts, literally with their lives.

In the words of our co-founder, Dr. Viviana Martinez-Bianchi: “the best approaches to build understanding and generate trust during the pandemic are those done together with community representation, addressing not only COVID-19 information but, more importantly, ways to improve social determinants of vulnerability in health. This project gives us an opportunity to work together in a more meaningful way and extend our collective approach to counties where we haven’t yet been as involved.” 

Through our collaboration we will strengthen our network to effectively provide Latinx immigrant families the necessary tools to weather the pandemic, and also thrive after the worst is over. Our collective work will include:

• Connectivity of organizations

• Access to emergency COVID resources for Latinos

• Vaccination coordination

• COVID prevention, awareness, and education

• Capacity building/training for Latino individuals and organizations

• Mental health services