Promotores share what they learn about climate change impacts to other farmworkers.

Celia Jiménez here, thinking about the conversation I had with residents trained to provide health information to the community, called promotores during a recent Sunday morning in Salinas. 

I felt at home in a way, especially since we talked exclusively in Spanish; I rarely speak Spanish nowadays. 

I met with four promotores—Joseline Islas-Castro, Jose Victor Lopez, Beatriz Garza and Maria Tarelo—as well as Center for Community Advocacy’s Norma Ahedo, a lead community health organizer, and Joel Hernandez, executive director.

We talked about a recent training they participated in with Campo-Sano, a program focused on the impacts of climate change in the farmworker community that I reported in the March 20 edition of the Weekly. 

Over coffee, we talked about their motivations to participate, what they learned and what they are doing with the knowledge they gained. 

Tarelo, a promotora and farmworker, says her curiosity was what motivated her to get involved. Now, she shares the information she learns with fellow farmworkers.

Lopez has been a farmworker for 20 years, and he never thought he would be training others. 

“My world is the field. That’s where my strength is,” he says. 

Islas-Castro, a former farmworker, says spreading the word about impacts of climate change and other topics helps them build a network and unity in the community and keep them informed. 

Islas-Castro says it is easier to interact with others when they share a similar background and talk using a straightforward language, noting trust is crucial while passing information along. 

Garza says attending Campo-Sano made her realize climate change isn’t a topic for rich people, but something that impacts everyone. 

“Farmworkers are some of the most vulnerable and we don’t realize it,” Garza says. 

Garza adds farmworkers are working in the fields in adverse conditions that sometimes could be detrimental to their own health; she notes many were working on the fields during the Vistra battery storage facility fire in Moss Landing.

During the training, promotores learned about local laws, pesticides, farmworkers rights, impacts of climate change on physical and mental health and more. 

One of the most important aspects of this training was the collaboration among researchers, students, nonprofit organizations and community members. They worked together to collect data, organize it and disseminate it to benefit the local community, especially farmworkers.

Tarelo says one of the things they’ve learned during the training is how a decision to work under unsafe conditions, such as a fire or extreme heat conditions, can have long-lasting health effects. Missing a day of work, she says, will affect them “a little financially, but it won’t impact their health.”

Hernandez says CCA is hoping to work with UC Santa Cruz on bringing these training sessions to the Imperial and Central valleys, including parts of Arizona, following the harvesting season in the region. 

They hope to spread this information at spaces farmworkers congregate such as schools, churches and fields.