The Center for New Community’s Midwest Immigrant Health Project (MIHP) is now underway!  This three-year initiative will organize rural congregations and immigrant  workers and their families on health care issues and concerns in meatpacking and poultry processing communities and plants in three Midwest states, through mid-2010.  Health Action Councils will be formed in a dozen communities, under the leadership of immigrants, to address a wide range of health concerns. 

Leone Bicchieri, a seasoned and experienced organizer, is serving as Project Director.  An organizer for the Missouri component of the project—Axel Fuentes—is at work in the northeast region of the state.  Health care issues in rural meatpacking and poultry processing communities present daunting challenges at the intersection of immigration, poverty, isolation, and risk, in one of the most dangerous jobs in the nation.

The Missouri work is based out of Milan, a small town that hosts a large hog processing facility. Many Latino immigrants have settled in the area to live and work at the plant, alongside other community members. Fuentes is currently reaching out to local congregations, community members, farmers, health care professionals, and plant workers to assess and understand the local needs and concerns regarding health care issues. The next step will be to begin building local Health Action Councils to address the main concerns identified by the community. 

Some 40 congregations and parishes in 12 communities in three Midwest states, and 6,000 immigrant workers will be impacted by the MIHP over the course of the next three years, and a Regional Health Action Council will be formed to address health and safety issues in participating communities.