Bringing Health to the Heartland for Immigrant Children
Cedar Falls, IA, 2002
More than 1,000,000 people migrate to the United States every year. They arrive here primarily from Latin America, Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. Traditionally, immigration in America has been an issue that affected large cities and border states, but in recent years, the largest growth in immigration and refugee resettlement has been in rural states. Often, new immigrant families find themselves faced with having to navigate health information and services alien to them. In order to address these needs, KUNI/KHKE, in collaboration with Global Health Corps and Radio Postville, produced culturally appropriate children's health programs in native languages for immigrant and refugee families in rural Iowa communities.
Global Health Corps, an award-winning nonprofit organization that trains health pre-professionals to conduct preventive programming with diverse and underserved populations, developed a series of culturally appropriate radio shows in Spanish, Russian, Hebrew, and English. These radio shows, 5 to 15 minutes in length, were produced at the studio facilities of KUNI and broadcast regularly on Radio Postville, a new and innovative community station that targets immigrant populations throughout Northeast Iowa.
The goals of this program were to improve access to culturally appropriate preventive knowledge about children's health issues for refugee and immigrant populations; to enhance the cultural competency of health pre-professionals by providing them with specialized academic training and field opportunities to develop health messages through community radio for diverse and low-literacy populations; and to serve as a community and state leader in the provision of quality public service radio programming for rural and underserved populations in Iowa.
Contact Information
KUNI/KHKE FM/a>
John Hess, Station Manager & Director of Development
Tel:319-273-6446
Global Health Corps
Dr. Michele Yehieli, Executive Director
Tel:319-273-6411
Radio Postville
Tim Belay, General Manager
Tel:563-864-7945