Community
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Mi Chiantla – Community Reinvestment Project Spotlight
Mi Chiantla is one 30 By/For Black, Latine, and Indigenous Kin organizations in Pierce County recommended by the Pierce County Local Advisory Team to receive funding through the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Community Reinvestment Project.
GTCF contracted with Commerce to convene the Pierce County Local Advisory Team and deliver funding based on their recommendations. You can read more about this partnership here.
GTCF reached out to Dr. Carlos Mejia, Executive Director, Mi Chiantla to learn more about their organization and how this Community Reinvestment Project funding is helping accelerate their work in Pierce County.
What inspired the creation of your organization/movement?
Mi Chiantla (My Home/Mi Casa) was born out of the need for social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion for low income and BIPOC Middle and High School students from marginalized communities to prevent substance use and violence by providing access to opportunities for free experiential learning through evidence-based and innovative programs. Children and youth from Low income and BIPOC communities are at risk of substance use and violence and being funneled into the school to prison pipeline. 80% of the population in juvenile detention facilities in Washington 18 years old and under are BIPOC. Mi Chiantla is not a place; it is an opportunity for belonging.
What is a challenge – or opportunity – your organization/movement is addressing or trying to create solutions for?
After COVID 19 we have seen a great gap in the connection between students and parents, social disconnection, and increasing number of cases of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, violence, bullying, harassment, and isolation. We seek to provide programs that enhance the connection between children and youth and their parents, family, and community, help students to develop protective factors that include social emotional skills, critical thinking, and . problem-solving capabilities and reduce risk factors for substance use and violence improving mental health wellness and building resilient children and youth.
What is an example of the actions, programs, or projects of your organization/movement?
One example of our work is our innovative program on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math)
The program focuses on Sound Engineering and Bioscience. It’s delivered in 4-week cohorts using evidence-based math and science programming via 2-hour sessions weekly.
- Sound engineering: Students receive a set and directions to build a speaker. Test energy with four 2A batteries and turn it on, then connect the speaker to their cell phone Bluetooth, play their favorite song. The speakers are distributed according to age. Junior and Senior students receive a speaker that needs to use soldering and last more time to put together. Students learn basics about soldering and materials needed for wetting.
- Arts: students decorate their speaker with their favorite art and personalize their speaker. Students learn how the speaker works from energy to sound. Students then learn about soundwaves, decibels, frequencies, vibrations, conduction, Hertz.
- Bioscience: Students learn to connect soundwaves to the human body:
- How we hear: Students learn anatomy and physiology 101 of the ear and hearing, conduction, students use tuning forks to evaluate conduction, use an otoscope to look at external canal and eardrum; learn medical terminology.
- Human body sounds: Students learn about circulation and heartbeats, anatomy and physiology 101 of the heart, frequency, and rhythm; Using a stethoscope to listen to the heartbeats; learn medical terminology. Students learn about breathing and breathing sounds. Use stethoscope to listen to breathing sounds.
- Students learn about vibrations and blood pressure, how heartbeats are related to blood pressure, what the higher and lower numbers are regulated and related to heartbeats, normal blood pressure values, how to use a sphygmomanometer to measure the blood pressure, and medical terminology.
- Students learn about heartbeats vibrations and waves are captured by electrical conduction with an electrocardiogram EKG, number of leads, and how to record a one lead digital EKG using Kardia digital EKG with a cell phone. Learn about electrical waves P, QRS complex, and T and normal and abnormal cardiac rhythm.
- Students learn how sound engineering is used in the field of biomedicine.
How can funding – like what was delivered through the Community Reinvestment Project – help accelerate the work of Mi Chiantla?
Funding like the Community Reinvestment Project allows organizations like Mi Chiantla to bring more program opportunities to marginalized communities that historically suffer disparities in health, education, economic, and environmental. Our approach is completely community-based. We work in the community, with the community, for the community. We work in the community where the people we serve live, gather, and play; with the community developing community leadership by contracting Champion Ambassadors, trusted and respected leaders of the community that represent, advocate, inform, educate, and bridge the gap between the community needs and the existent resources; and for the community by identifying where is the most needed.
The funding we received from the Community Reinvestment Project expanded our services to several Tacoma locations in Eastside Tacoma, providing the evidence-based intervention program Strengthening Families. Through this program, students and parents learn how working together can enhance their connection and build strong families and strong communities.
Students learn about:
- setting & achieving goals
- decisions and consequences
- developing coping skills for peer pressure, substance use
- preventing violence, bullying, and harassment
Parents learn about:
- managing stress
- improving communication skills
- how to support their children to be successful