Our nationally certified facilitators provide immigrant children and their parents a rich and engaging 12-week program covering substance use prevention, mental health and resilience, art appreciation, STEM curriculum, and more. Parents are required to participate with their children and the entire program is free. Participants attend 85% of sessions offered to them on average and provide valuable feedback our facilitators use to continuously improve the program.
The graphic on the right shows how our program is supported by funders and is implemented by program staff, students and parents, champion ambassadors, and program partners. Next comes the program’s core content described in more detail below. This content promotes social emotional learning, critical thinking, and self- and community efficacy among participants. All of these elements combine to reinforce protective factors like a sense of belonging, technical skill development, self-esteem, and expanded relationships. Kids with these protective factors are more likely to overcome challenges they face and excel in school.
Cultural Learning
Through relevant cultural programming, we work to build our participants’ sense of belonging, self-esteem, and recognition of their own identity, as well as those around them. This information is often new for participants and they often spark new interests and lasting community connections.
Sciences
Mi Chiantla offers opportunities for low income and BIPOC students to engage in 6 sessions of free, hands-on STEM training. They get to work on their own, with one another, and show what they’ve learned to their parents. The program combines sound engineering and bioscience topics in age- and culturally appropriate ways. We aim to challenge and inspire kids in ways that build self-confidence.
Week one: Students receive a kit to build a speaker. After they complete their speaker, they receive batteries and connect their speaker to their phones via Bluetooth technology. They can also decorate their speaker with culturally relevant features.
Week two: Students learn how the speaker actually works, from energy to sound. They also learn what role each piece of the speaker plays in making it work. Finally, they learn about soundwaves, decibels, frequencies, hertz, vibrations, and more.
Week three: They learn how we hear, anatomy of the ear, physiology of hearing, air, water, and solid conduction using a tuning fork, learning terminology, and using an otoscope.
Week four: We cover how the body produces sound, heartbeats, heart anatomy and physiology 101, heart frequency, heart rhythm, terminology, using a stethoscope, and how to recognize normal frequency and rhythm.
Week five: Students learn about blood pressure, how the high and lower values are related to heartbeats and pressure, normal values, how to use a sphygmomanometer with a stethoscope and measure the blood pressure.
Week six: Students learn about electrical signals and heartbeats, how the electrical signals are captured in the chest or through digital pads, leads, normal electrocardiogram, waves, and normal rhythm. Students use Kardia pads to watch one-lead EKG. Students learn about mechanical and radio waves and their use in ultrasound, CT scans, and MRI machines.
Arts and Music
Express yourself visually with paint or audibly with musical instruments. Mi Chiantla provides opportunity to low income and BIPOC Middle and High School students to learn AfroLatino drumming and contemporary dance. We seek for students to learn the connection between drumming and culture, healing circles, and movement for mental health wellbeing, connection, and belonging.
Social Studies
We following a “They learn – We learn” approach to both teach and learn from one another. Parents learn from facilitators, kids learn from one another, parents learn from kids, facilitators learn from everyone, and so on! We cover substance use and violence including relevant data and basic neuroscience principles. We get participants talking about drugs and violence to increase and encourage communication on these critical topics. Together, we learn what individuals and structural factors participants feel affect their children in their homes, neighborhoods, schools, and communities.
Prosocial Engagement
Our whole program is designed to get young people and their parents collaborating and learning from one another.
Recreation
We intentionally weave plenty of fun into each program to give our hardworking participants a rare treat and promote a relaxed and joyful atmosphere where people feel comfortable connecting with one another.
We took these photos at a recent gathering.
