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Fun offered for kids of migrants
By Maunette Loeks
For migrant farmers, the summer season means months of work harvesting
crops.
The Community Action Partnership of Western Nebraska's Migrant Head
Start Program wants to ensure that the summer will be enjoyable and safe
for the children of migrant farmers.
Maria Alvizar, family development coordinator at the partnership, and
Tania Lopez, a family advocate, are getting the word out about the
Migrant Head Start program.
It offers care to migrant workers' children who are 6 weeks to 5 years
old.
Many of the migrant workers who come to the Panhandle have traveled from
Lopez knows the program's value firsthand because she attended it as a
child of migrant workers.
She remembers days spent in her parents' vehicle, out in the hot sun
with her siblings.
“It would get really hot, really boring,” she said. “We were hungry.”
She said she and her siblings looked forward to the start of the Head
Start program each year.
“I loved the Migrant Head Start Program,” she said. “I wasn't out in the
fields. The Migrant Head Start Program is a good way to get the children
out of the fields and into a good environment.”
Migrant Head Start Programs are offered in
“Parents are really grateful that their children are in a safe place,”
Alvizar said. “They are also learning in a fun environment.”
The program provides care to children from
The program also provides referrals to health and social services,
working with other agencies that serve the area's migrant population.
Parents must show that they have moved from one geographic area to
another in the past 24 months and derive more than half their income
from migrant work. Parents need to fill out an application and provide
proof of income, a birth certificate and immunization records for their
children.
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