Five on Friday: Celebrating MCN's 2024 Achievements
We’ve made it to the end of the year! For our final edition of Five on Friday for 2024, we want to celebrate some of the incredible wins we experienced here at MCN this year... but there’s too much good stuff to limit to 5, so we doubled it. Let’s count down our Top Ten Migrant Clinicians Network Stories of 2024!! Drumroll, please....
10. Adults Get Vaccinated, Too! This double resource debuted in March during Farmworker Awareness Week. Our vaccine comic book, “Adults Get Vaccinated Too!” is in English and Spanish. It covers the basics of protecting yourself from disease, the symptoms of preventable illnesses, and the benefits farmworkers can expect from getting vaccinations. The comic book is a complement to our updated “Adults Get Vaccinated Too!” calendar, which contains much of the same information in a large, easy-to-read poster.
9. Avian Flu Resources When avian flu jumped to dairy farms, and dairy workers began testing positive, MCN rapidly built resources and educational opportunities for clinicians to ensure dairy workers can stay safe on the job. We also spoke regularly to the press, wrote an op-ed, and developed an FAQ to make sure the needs and realities of dairy workers were top-of-mind as authorities developed a public health response. This work will continue strongly in 2025 – watch our Avian Flu page for updated info.
8. Organizations Work Alongside Communities in the Face of Climate Change MCN's Puerto Rico team launched a three-year collaborative partner with Caribbean community health centers to bolster local agricultural communities’ resilience and well-being in the face of the massive threats from climate change to the region. The team rapidly pushed forward this important work, and their new curriculum will be released in 2025 – stay tuned!
7. MCN Applauds Maryland's Heat Illness Regulation, with an Eye on the Health of Farmworkers In 2024, MCN did a ton of work to give clinicians tools to empower themselves on issues of heat, and to push for local, state, and federal standards to protect workers when the heat builds. MCN’s Maryland office was particularly celebratory when Maryland finally passed its long-awaited heat standard in August.
6. Ventanilla de Salud Provides Essential In-Person Services Migrant Clinicians Network is well known for our extensive health trainings and support that we provide across the nation – but we are also committed to providing health and wellness resources and connection in person, through our work at the Ventanilla de Salud offices in Austin, Eagle Pass, and Del Rio, Texas. In 2024, our incredible VdS health fairs and special events provided thousands of essential health screenings, vaccinations, and valuable health information at no cost to our communities. Thank you to our Ventanilla coordinators for enabling health justice at the local level!
5. Health Network: Enabling Heart Surgery for a Young Asylum-Seeking Migrant Our humble virtual patient navigation and support system served over 1300 patients in 2024, saving the lives of migrants like the girl chronicled in this case study, and making big strides toward our mission of providing practical solutions at the intersection of migration, vulnerability, and health.
4. Participatory Evaluation at the Heart of Our Projects In 2024, MCN’s exceptional Data and Evaluation team linked up with program staff on multiple projects to ensure that our projects incorporate community-centered, participatory evaluation so we know for certain that our projects are meeting community members’ needs as expected. This is an undercurrent across our projects that doesn’t get enough love, so here’s a tiny love letter to our participatory eval team! Thank you!
3. Humanitarian Care Network Builds Structural Change MCN’s important project with the Humanitarian Care Network, which took huge strides in 2024, reimagines the migration pathways into the United States, with systems that consider migrants’ health needs throughout their journey.
2. Words Matter Our Witness to Witness Words Matter campaign on the impact of anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies took center stage in 2024. Our Words Matter page features video stories of immigrants affected by anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the webinar series and blog posts that offer practical actions to take. The webinar series was highly rated and brought in the most registrants out of all our webinars in 2024.
1. TIME 100 Most Influential People in Health And here it is, the biggest MCN story of the year: In May, Health Network's efforts to assist pregnant asylum seekers were tossed into the global spotlight when TIME named MCN’s CEO, Kim Nolte as one of the top 100 most influential people in health. This remarkable honor highlighted MCN’s innovative, lifechanging work through Health Network. Thank you, Health Network team for your incredible work, and congrats to Kim!
Thank you to our MCN supporters and fans for a great 2024. We have so much more work to do to bring health justice to the forefront – see you in 2025!
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