Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) (right) presents a certificate to Britt Rios-Ellis during the opening of the Centro Salud es Cultura, a new downtown Long Beach Latino health-resource center, on Oct. 18. Rios-Ellis is co-director of the CSULB department of health science graduate program, a health-science professor and director of the CSULB-NCLR Center for Latino Community Health, Leadership, Evaluation and Training.
Intended as a new resource to address health-related issues, particularly for the Latino community, the center is sponsored by the National Council for La Raza/CSULB Center for Latino Community Health, Evaluation, and Leadership Training and will build on its work on the CSULB campus, according to a press release issued by the university.
“Much of student success starts at this center. It’s so nice that so many former students have come back today to this new center,” said Britt Rios-Ellis, co-director of the CSULB department of health science graduate program, who in addition to being a professor of health science is the director of the CSULB-NCLR Center for Latino Community Health, Leadership, Evaluation and Training. “What we’ve created is an empowering culture, and that leads to inspiration and success. We will use this space for many things and continue our commitment at Cal State Long Beach to the community.
“At Centro Salud es Cultura we are leveraging resources by seeking partnerships to provide health- and educational-equity programming at our downtown site. Our long-term goal is to establish a center that brings together corporate and governmental partners, community leaders, researchers, Long Beach residents, students and elected officials to create effective strategies that reflect and incorporate the cultural capital of the community they serve,” she continued.
Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal (D-Long Beach) presented the center with a certificate and said, “What a wonderful day it is to celebrate this community partnership. It’s very important— community partnerships. That’s what’s happening here. I wish many years of success to you here.”
Chicano civil rights leader Jose Angel Gutierrez actually kicked off the celebration the night before with a lecture and a screening on the upcoming PBS series Latino Americans: Pride and Prejudice, in which he is featured. Recognized as one of the four major Chicano leaders, including Cesar Chavez, Gutierrez is responsible for leading the Raza Unida Party, the first Latino political party, to victory in South Texas.
The center is designed to: provide health-promotion services that improve the health outcomes of residents while reinforcing positive cultural values; increase capacity to conduct health-equity programming in the local community; and discover and develop effective community health strategies to improve access to care and culturally and linguistically relevant health education.
“This is an amazing opportunity to link the city and university like our Long Beach Promise does. It would not happen without community support. This is exactly the kind of relationship our university and our community should have,” said CSULB president Don Para. “This is one example of how that happens. It’s a new, amazing reality that has happened.”
The center will provide an array of classes such as mental wellness, student academic preparedness and leadership-development opportunities aimed at supporting family unity and health. It will also address issues like obesity.
The long-term goal is to establish a center that brings together corporate and governmental partners, community leaders, researchers, Long Beach residents, students and elected officials to create effective strategies that reflect and incorporate the cultural capital of the community they serve, and it will facilitate research aimed at improving the health outcomes of economically disadvantaged residents, according to CSULB.
Sponsors include: Molina Healthcare; St. Mary Medical Center; Kaiser Permanente; Wellpoint, Inc.; Port of Long Beach; Assemblymember Lowenthal; The California Endowment; Nutragentics; JMS; Northgate Gonzalez Markets; and Sergio Avina Winery.
Source: CSULB
