Project Clean Environment for Healthy Kids

In 1999 Farmworker Justice with support from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Border Health Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed an environmental health education project called Project Clean Environment for Healthy Kids.

The project provided training to health professionals and individuals within migrant farmworker communities from both sides of the U.S. - Mexico border to address environmental hazards that pose risks to health. It was initiated in four pairs of border communities: McAllen, Texas – Reynosa, Mexico; Yuma County, Arizona and San Luis, Mexico; El Paso, Texas – Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; and the Coachella and Imperial Valleys of California and Mexicali, Mexico.

The project trained individuals within migrant farmworker communities as lay health promoters or promotores de salud.   Farmworker Justice, in conjunction with local migrant and community health centers, organized workshops covering a variety of environmental health issues such as what steps workers can take to reduce their (and their families') exposure to pesticides; how to prevent childhood lead poisoning; how ground water becomes contaminated; the health effects of water pollution; and how to reduce the frequency and severity of childhood asthma.   Once trained, these community leaders, with supervision from Farmworker Justice and its local partner organizations , then provided peer education to members of their communities and other border residents.

The project also included trainings for health professionals that focused on the recognition, management and reporting of acute and chronic pesticide-related health problems.   The principal trainer for these workshops was the internationally known pesticide expert, Dr. Marion Moses. Dr. Moses has compiled a reference manual on the common causes of pesticide exposure, recognizing and managing acute poisoning cases and an analysis of the epidemiological literature concerning the association between pesticides and cancer, adverse reproductive outcomes, asthma and neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease. You can download the reference manual here.

The curricula and handouts for these trainings on environmental health are still available.  We also have educational brochures on asthma, lead poisoning and pesticide safety in English and Spanish.  (Be patient: these illustrated pamphlets may take a while to download.)  We hope you find these materials useful.

Click here for more information on Occupational and Environmental Health and Safety issues for farmworkers.