AMA Timeline

2001

Ana Bolaños, as a precursor to her work with AMA, identified four farmworking women from Volusia County to share their testimonies with the RWHP as part of Pizcando Sueños: The Voices of Mexican Farmworker Women.  This bi-national project focused on affirming the journey and celebrating the dreams of farmworker women through the gathering of oral histories and then the development of three fotonovela stories. This work served as a springboard for the involvement of community women who would later form AMA, the Alianza de Mujeres Activas (Alliance of Active Women).

 

2002

Ana and AMA further supported the Pizcando Sueños project by linking us to their families in Mexico City. The RWHP toured Mexico City and Guanajuato facilitating workshops using the farmworker women-developed fotonovelas and the new 12-panel cloth exhibit.

Additionally, the AMA women participated at the Opening Night Reflection Celebrations of Pizcando Sueños during its three-month exhibition at the Crealdé School of Art in Winter Park, FL.  Ana then represented the women in Georgia when Pizcando Sueños was presented as an exhibit and presentation session at the 15th Annual East Coast Migrant Stream Forum in Savannah, GA.

 

2003

AMA was represented as the Pizcando Sueños project entered its promotional and exhibition phase. The Pizcando Sueños exhibits were on exhibition for almost the entire year with exhibits at the Mexican Consulate in Orlando, FL, for a five-month run, the 13th Annual Midwest Farmworker Stream Forum and with the Migrant Advocates of Lexington, Ky. [and workshop training].  The most exciting exhibit was when Pizcando Sueños was present at the Florida Museum of Natural History in connection with a summer long exhibit on textiles and women’s cooperatives from Chiapis, Mexico. Thousands of people saw the exhibit highlighting the struggles faced by Mexicans as they try to survive their economic realities while still holding on to their culture once crossing the border.  AMA representatives presented at the Opening Consulate activity and at the opening of the museum exhibit.

AMA worked with the RWHP to present the Pizcando Sueños research findings as part of 13th Annual Midwest Farmworker Stream Forum in Houston, TX, and at the West Coast Migrant Stream Forum in Seattle, WA.

In a new project, AMA coordinated a team of community actors for a photo shoot for of the, Compartiendo Triunfos, a series of fotonovela stories, posters, radionovelas and public service announcements on parenting, celebrating parents’ struggles to improve their children’s futures. (This series offers the reaffirmation of education, non-violent discipline, and Spanish as the first language at home.)

 

2004

AMA coordinated Hurricane relief work in Volusia County.

 

2005

AMA carries out a community survey, which identifies, breast cancer as a major concern in the community.

 

2006

AMA partnered with the RWHP in the Florida Breast Cancer Coalition Research Foundation breast cancer project. With AMA of Pierson, we began the project with AMA members carrying out an in-depth breast cancer and breast health survey.  Over 100 surveys were gathered, offering us and the partners incredible information to guide us in our community education!  AMA coordinated the actors for the photography of “El Susto de Marta.”

Additionally, AMA carried out an additional 100 surveys on tuberculosis as part of the RWHP’s Southeastern Tuberculosis initiative.

 

2007

AMA partners with the RWHP to train AMA lay-health workers and then in turn educate through one-on-one trainings about early detection of breast cancer.  Twelve lay health workers are trained, and they carry out over 250 education sessions in three months in Western Volusia and Eastern Putnam counties in Florida.  This project is culminated with the AMA Women’s Health Summit, in which 45 women are informed about early cancer detection and witness the graduation of the new lay health workers. This project was funded by the American Cancer Society.