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Health screenings, help offered to Immokalee farmworkers at free event
By John Osborne
IMMOKALEE
— Hundreds of people turned out Saturday for the sixth annual Migrant
Expo in Immokalee to receive free health screenings and to learn about
the various social, educational, vocational and support services offered
to migrant workers and their families in Collier County.
“The main purpose of today is to provide information to migrants and
seasonal farmworkers about the agencies that we have in Collier County
to support them,” said Nancy Frees, director of the Immokalee division
of the Collier County Health Department, which organized the event that
featured 30 different agencies.
“They can talk to the fire and safety agencies, and the anti-slavery and
human trafficking divisions of the Collier County Sheriff’s Office, as
well as learn about the educational opportunities that are available to
them,” Frees said.
Frees said Southwest Florida is home to about 18,000 migrant workers
each year.
Since many of those workers often are reluctant to approach
law-enforcement officials, Collier sheriff’s Capt. Tom Davis said he was
on-hand to help put their minds at ease.
“We want to share information about the Sheriff’s Office and get to know
the different ethnic minority groups around here so that we can build
relationships with them,” Davis said. “We want them to feel comfortable
coming to us, so we’re trying to bridge the gap so that they’re not
reluctant to talk to us about the issues and problems they’re having.”
Not surprisingly, Chris Straton, president of the Collier County League
of Women Voters, was at Saturday’s event to help register new voters.
“We want to encourage voter turnout, especially in the Hispanic
community, and this is also a very good opportunity for us to network
with the other service agencies,” Straton said. “We especially want to
encourage the residents of Immokalee to come out and vote.”
Serving as translator for the Spanish-speaking migrant workers, League
member Asia Rial-Elsbree echoed Straton’s sentiments.
“With the sheer number of opportunities for people to become citizens,
we think it’s important that they exercise their right to vote when they
attain citizenship,” she said.
Leading a contingent of medical-school students giving up part of their
spring breaks to help take blood-pressure and blood-sugar readings, Dan
Van Durme of the Florida State University College of Medicine also
wanted to get the word out about his school’s services.
“It’s our first time here, and we think the most important issue is to
make sure the community is aware of the resources they might not
otherwise know about,” said Van Durme, who serves as chairman of the
university’s family medicine and rural health department.
Javier Rosado of Immokalee, a psychology fellow at Florida State
University, was chipping in to help with blood-pressure checks Saturday.
“The primary importance of today is to let people know about the
resources available to them,” he said. “There are lot of barriers, such
as transportation, financial and otherwise, and the best thing we can do
is offer access.”
Going from booth-to-booth to learn as much as he could, migrant worker
Fidel Carbajal said he was especially worried about the country’s
struggling economy.
“Work has been very slow – I’m only working two days a week at the
market now,” said Carbajal, who recently traveled to Immokalee from
Michigan to find work. “I’ve never seen anything like this event,
though. It is very good.”
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