Our Impact
Our mission is to create practical solutions at the intersection of vulnerability, migration, and health.
We envision a world based on health justice and equity, where migration is never an impediment to well-being.
A Letter from our CEO
Dear friends,
This year marks Migrant Clinicians Network’s 40th year championing for health justice. MCN has grown and matured into an impactful and award-winning national leader in migrant health, as you will see in the many successes chronicled in this report.
We’ve experienced a lot in the last year. In 2023, our founding CEO, Karen Mountain, MBA, MSN, RN retired after an extraordinary 36 years of dedicated service. We are immensely grateful to Karen and continue to be inspired by her example of leadership, vision, generosity, and compassion.
In May, I had the honor of being selected as one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in global health. This extraordinary recognition underscores our organization's powerful work connecting migrants and asylum seekers to health care – work that almost no other organization does successfully in the United States.
Thank you for being an integral member of our team. Your generosity and commitment are making this lifesaving work possible. On these pages, you will see the breadth of our work and read inspirational stories about a few of the people we have touched. Together, we will continue fighting for health justice and equity through our innovative programs, trainings, and technical assistance.
With gratitude,
A Note From Our Board Chair
Dear Supporters of Migrant Clinicians Network,
As Board Chair, I welcome you into the Migrant Clinicians Network family. We are an organization with a big heart and a bold mission: to ensure health equity for migrants and immigrants by creating practical solutions at the intersection of vulnerability, migration, and health. We have accomplished much in 2023, and we have a strong vision for the coming years.
Climate change, political and economic instability, growth and opportunity, and global mobility are increasing migration worldwide – but our health and immigration systems are unprepared to meet the health needs of migrants like asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border or migrant farmworkers moving across state lines.
In the midst of this dynamic world of migration, Migrant Clinicians Network is reducing barriers to care, bolstering clinicians’ skills to serve migrants, building linkages between marginalized communities and health providers, pushing for protections for low-wage workers, and much more. This lifesaving work builds a stronger, more just world, forging a path for healthier migrations.
On behalf of the MCN Board of Directors, I invite you to join us: engage with us, share our work with colleagues, and donate to our critical programs. Together, we can build a world based on health justice and equity, where migration is never an impediment to well-being.
MCN Programs
Our Work
Connection
Migrant Clinicians Network engages frontline clinicians and the migrant and immigrant communities they serve, so we can meet their changing needs -- from the diabetes epidemic, to COVID, to worker safety, to climate change. But we go far beyond single issues: we address the intersections between these health concerns, as well as the structural barriers that patients face that lead to health issues in the first place.
Collaboration
MCN boasts a 40-year track record of nationwide collaboration and partnership, so we can efficiently translate emerging health issues and public health responses into participatory, practical, bilingual, and culturally relevant training, resources, and more that can quickly be utilized by migrant and immigrant communities across the nation.
Clinical Perspective
MCN is the go-to clinical organization for migrant health and health justice. We provide expertise on today's biggest issues from the health perspective of clinicians who are serving migrants, immigrants, and other socially or historically marginalized communities.
Saving Lives, Connecting to Care
In 2023, more than 960,000 individuals in families and 137,000 unaccompanied minors were apprehended at the US southern border. Despite strides made to enhance medical services within Customs and Border Protection facilities, the lack of coordinated support upon legal release into the US poses significant challenges, particularly for high-risk individuals in need of urgent care.
Health Care is a Human Right
MCN's Health Network is the only organization in the United States providing medical care coordination for immigrants traveling anywhere in the country with pressing health needs. Our team of seven Health Network Associates, a social worker, nurse midwife, and physician connect thousands of patients to care, saving lives, and ensuring that this critical human right is accessible to everyone in the US.
Pregnant Women and Sick Children Deserve Care
Health Network reduces maternal mortality in the United States through a programmatic focus on pregnant women and children. We also ensure access to high-quality specialty care for migrant children with complex or acute medical problems.
Climate and Environmental Justice
Workers experience extreme environmental risks like pesticide exposure, contaminated water, dust, mold, heat, and more –many of which are amplified or complicated by the climate crisis. MCN’s climate and environmental justice efforts extend into advocacy, education and technical assistance and participatory research. Our effective and culturally attuned efforts target all levels, from nationwide structural injustices, to training and support of individual workers and small communities.
Workers Need Healthy and Safe Workplaces
Immigrant and migrant workers labor in some of the most hazardous jobs in the country, from building homes to harvesting our produce to milking our cows to cleaning up after a disaster -- and they are afforded few protections. MCN is on the frontlines with our clinical network to build stronger workplace protections, ensure sufficient training and resources for workers, and provide ample technical assistance and education for clinicians to care for workers, should they be injured or sick on the job.
Recognizing Trauma
Migrants and immigrants experience violence and violation before, during, and after migration. Clinicians and other “witnesses” have their own stress responses when listening to migrants’ stories. Clinicians’ work demands cause moral injury, when they are unable to provide the care their patients need. MCN’s Mental Health and Well-Being program addresses these complex factors through an anti-racist and trauma-informed approach focused on culturally responsive resources, webinars, and peer-support groups.
Moving from Stressed and Exhausted to Empowered and Aware
MCN’s Witness to Witness equips clinicians to become empowered to better support their patients. In 2023, W2W offered webinars and resources on the Witnessing approach, MCN’s primary well-being framework on how to manage stress and improve well-being, to over 600 clinicians. We also provided clinician support groups, a space for health care workers to connect and build community with others who truly understand their experiences. This work is wildly popular -- and growing.
Growing Our Impact
Building on our successful efforts supporting clinicians, MCN is expanding these efforts to provide culturally responsive and accessible resources and frameworks to essential workers, farmworkers, and immigrant workers. We equip both individuals and organizations with the tools they need to create supportive environments where well-being is a priority.
Centering Migrant and Immigrant Community Needs and Realities
MCN’s robust education efforts incorporate the needs of the communities we serve from start to finish. MCN includes elements like participatory evaluation – in which the community who receives the training conducts elements like self-assessments and feedback loops that inform the direction of the trainings in real time – to ensure our webinars are the most effective, inclusive, culturally relevant, and practical.
Continuing Education for Clinicians and Health Care Teams
MCN’s clinical education continues to be highly rated, highly sought after, and unique in the country. Our Diabetes ECHO series for Community Health Workers, for example, is the only series in the country specifically serving Community Health Workers on diabetes and entirely in Spanish. MCN is agile enough to quickly address emerging issues like H5N1 and the effects of wildfire smoke and heat on workers.
Major Drivers of Migration
As climate change, environmental stressors, political upheaval, war and unrest, and economic pressures collide with a technology-rich world, migration has become more common -- and more complicated. MCN is equipped, with 40 years of service, partnerships, and successes, to meet the growing and complex needs of migrants across the nation. Our work ensures that their human rights and basic dignities are upheld – including the right to migrate safely, and the right to access health care when needed.
The Clinical Perspective
We view the world through a health justice lens. MCN’s clinical approach ensures that the health issues that migrant and immigrants face are top-of-mind during emerging threats like a climate disaster, new policy at the border, or an emerging infectious disease. In 2023, MCN responded to a wide range of issues, from long COVID to occupational heat stress, creating greater health equity and building capacity to better serve migrants and immigrants.
Our Leadership
Board of Directors
Our Team
Executive Staff
MCN Staff and Board
Back Row: Noel Dufrene, Robert Shelly, Paula Latortue-Albino, Marcy Ramirez, David Ping, Peggy Finster, Elaine Penn, Karen Farchaus Stein, Giorgio Franyuti, Brian Chick, Enedelia Basurto, Laszlo Madaras, Robert Kinnaird, Sonia Alvarado, Linda McCauley, Marysel Pagan Santana, Jessica Calderon, Mónica Fossi, Jannette Nuñez, Eric Ryan;
Middle Row: Saul Delgado, Alma Galvan, Martha Alvarado, Ana Marizza Patiño, Esther Pizza, Melinda Wiggins, Carmen Vélez Vega, Deliana Garcia, Mirtala Barrón, Kim Nolte, Roxana Piñeda, Gayle Thomas, Amy Liebman, Alma Colmenero, Norma Gonzalez, Brenda Ramirez, Annie Leone, Nicole Torres, Myrellis Muñiz-Márquez, Robert Corona;
Front Row: Roxana Saravia, Renai Edwards, Claire Seda, Pamela Secada-Sayles, Nilsa Padilla, Theressa Lyons-Clampitt, Joshi Covarrubias, Giovanni Lopez-Quezada, Aníbal Yariel López Correa, and Noel Hernández Otero.
Our Donors
Rita and Leonard Aberbach
Lindsay Alexovich
Jeanne Allen
Adrienne Alsbrooks
Norma Rico Alvarado
Laura Apelbaum
Theresa Baker-Beale
Carol Becker
Kenneth A. Berg
DeAnne Blankenship
Susan Bradford
Marianne and Alden Briscoe
Courtney Broaddus and Chuck Bloszies
Chloe Bronzan
Julie Brown and Steve Schneck
Jeffrey S. Bruneau
Gina Capra
Andrea Caracostis
Xochitl Castaneda and Marc Schenker
Richard Chaisson and Judy Harding
Brian Chick
Sharon Cohen and Michael Liebman
Joan Combellick
Loring Conant
Dr. Susan R. Cooley
Silvia Corral
Robert Jr. and Susan Corwin
Raphael and Carla Danziger
Roxanne Darling
Rachel Dash
Mary DeJesus
Matthew Dillon
Tami F. Donnelson
Earl Dotter
Cris Du Ron
Benjamin Duke
Shary Eiser
Abigail Erdmann and Luc Aalmans
Elizabeth Fair
Anita Feinstein
Cynthia Flannery
Linda Forst
Monica Fossi
Barb Foy
Giorgio Franyuti
Dagmar Friedman
Bart Friedman
Susan Gabbard
Eva Galvez
Deliana Garcia
Michelle Gedney
Frank Gilbert
Elizabeth Glecker
David Goldsmith
Antonio Gomez
Rossana Gonzalez
Amy Gorman
Marsha Griffin
Richard Hallum
Merrilee Harter Mitchell
Eleanor and Philip Hopewell
Jillian Hopewell
Steve Hutchinson
Brian Inouye
Lea Isgur
David Kahn
Mekenna Kasher
Teh Chee Keong
David Kezur
Malcolm and Justine Kinnaird
Nancy Kinzler Britton
Mary Korduner
Kathy Kosinski
Joan S. Kovach
Jennifer Laforest
Paula Latortue
Liz Lawrence
Katherine Layton
Barry Lesch
Amy Liebman
Lisa Liebman and Steven Sav
Giovanni Lopez-Quezada
Jordan Lord
Theressa Lyons-Clampitt
Ric MacDowell
EI Madaras
Laszlo and Enid Madaras
Margaret Magraw
Fred Marchant and Stefi Rubin
Linda McCauley
Kalyani McCullough
Rosemary Melody
Sybil Meyer
Robert Moore
Karen Mountain
Elliott Naishtat
Jonathan Natchez
Joe and Carol Neil
Dennis Nesser
Kim Nolte
Susan and Mike O'Leary
Ashley-Michelle Papon
Morgan Patton
Elaine Penn
Maureen Phillips
Sarah Rittner
Marcy Rodriguez
Frances Rosen
Phyllis Rothman
George Rust
Eric Ryan
Mary Sanger
Relia Mae Scheib
Stephen and Juli Seaman
Claire Seda
Greg Sheff and Sarah Buttrey
Rob and Wendy Shelly
Terry Singer
Lisa Sitkin
Karen Skerrett
Jennifer Slack
Susan Smith
Dr. David Smith
Rosemary Sokas
Karen Stein
Francis Stilp
Phoebe Tanner
Marcy Taylor Pattinson
Gayle Thomas
Vicki Thuesen
Dara Tom
JL Trizzino
Chinue Uecker
Allison Van Wye
Mark Vandegrift
James VanDerslice
Carmen Velez
Kaethe Weingarten
Lois Wessel
Bonnie Willdorf
Dr. Peter Wolk
Regina Yando
Ed Zuroweste and Candace Kugel
List of Federal and
Foundation Grants
CDC Foundation
Centro de los Derechos Del Migrante, Inc.
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
Denver Foundation
Eco America
Farm Network
Futures without Violence
Give Lively Foundation
Global Giving
Health Resources and Services Administration
Make My Donation, Inc.
Michigan State University
National Association of Community Health Centers
National Center for Farmworkers Health
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
National Institutes of Health
NCC
Paypal Giving Fund
Pfizer
Pledgeling Foundation
Rutgers
Save the Children
The California Wellness Foundation
The Price Foundation
The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation
Thoracic Foundation
United Stated Department of Agriculture
Upper Midwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center
US National Science Foundation
Winky Foundation
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Our Donors Say...
"I started donating to MCN over twenty years ago. I was captivated by their mission which, to me, transcends artificial boundaries and focuses on what matters most—the care of human beings. All humans deserve dignity and care regardless of their socio-economic or political standings. MCN understands this truth and is realistic and effective in navigating it."
Steven Luff
"I worked at Krogers for over 45 years in the Fresh Produce area. The more I learned about how all the produce that I loaded off the trucks got here, the more I felt sorry for the workers making it all possible. We make a mistake to take the fresh fruits and veggies for granted. I decided to donate regularly to an organization that provides direct support to the hard-working migrants in this country, wherever they are from. Migrant Clinicians Network was the obvious choice."
Jeff Bruneau
"We are grateful for the important work that MCN has done to bring health care information, education, and services to an especially vulnerable population. Migrant workers and their families are closer to the basic elements of environmental change than most of us, and yet they work hard to put food on our tables and make our lives easier. We too easily forget that they need health care services, education, and protection. We feel fortunate to be in a position to support MCN’s valuable work."
Mark and Laurie Kirszner