Listen: Latino Advocates in the South urge us to be “beacons of light” for refugee kids
Last week, I participated in the 3rd annual SPINAcademy South in Amicalola Falls State Park in Georgia. The four-day training is specifically designed for organizers and advocates working on immigration issues across the South; a sort of summer camp to learn effective communications skills and storytelling strategies for their organizations.
As part of the training, I led a “tactics team” on audio storytelling and the participants decided to make a radio story connecting their own migration experiences with those of refugee children now arriving at the US/Mexico border.
The five Latino advocates in our group came from four Southern states (their names are listed below). Each remembered how it felt when they traveled to the US as children and what it meant to have someone, a “beacon of light”, who welcomed them and made a difference in their lives. In making the piece, the advocates hoped that other Americans would offer assistance to unaccompanied children from Central America.
- Luis Aguilera Garcia: El Cambio, Boonville, NC
- Laura Cahue: SC Immigration Coalition, Columbia, SC
- Francisco Chavez: Uniting NC, Raleigh, NC
- Pamela Gomez: Hispanic Services Council, Tampa FL
- Luis Romo: Border Network for Human Rights, El Paso TX
- Edited by Will Coley, Aquifer Media
