Check out the October RIM Newsletter here.
The Cameron County Public Health Department Preparedness team partners with the local homeless centers serving Refugee, Immigrant, and Migrant (RIM) communities in Cameron County, Texas. NACCHO had the opportunity to speak with Ashley Ruiz, Head of Preparedness, and Daniela Orozco, Epidemiologist, on the Preparedness team.
The Preparedness team of Cameron County Public Health provides an array of services, from distributing physical tools to prevent the spread of COVID to educating RIM communities on the vaccination process.
“We target the homeless shelters and the federal shelters that serve the Latinx communities,” Ruiz explained.
Through their NACCHO grant, the preparedness team serves local detention centers as well as unaccompanied minor shelters, specifically by distributing COVID mitigation and prevention supplies like vaccines and hand sanitizers.
As part of their project goals, they create health communication resources such as a billboard educating RIM communities on the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine. To support elicit feedback from the community on tools such as the billboard, Cameron County continues to build bidirectional communication tools. Their goal for this month is to provide RIM communities in Cameron County free hygiene kits to help slow the spread of viruses like COVID-19, as well as creating a workshop to educate RIM communities on COVID prevention. This workshop will take place on Wednesday, October 26th, 2022.
