Community Engagement

Social Justice Mission

Proyecto Mamá is aligned closely with the social justice mission espoused by Marquette University. Specifically, the foundation of this project is community-engaged research within Milwaukee for the long-term goal of improving the well-being of an underserved and often-neglected portion of our city’s population: Latina mothers and their families. This project utilizes an asset-oriented approach in order to minimize pathologization of the community, but to simultaneously recognize the health disparities and numerous concerns regarding access to care for Latina mothers that must be better addressed (e.g., Edwards et al., 2015, 2017). This project’s balanced resource and needs assessment within the Latina/o community adheres closely to the social justice mission.

If you have any questions about the project or would like to know more, please contact Dr. Edwards by email at lisa.edwards@marquette.edu

Current Milwaukee Community Collaborations:

We are grateful to the following organizations for their support and collaboration with data collection for this community assessment:

Casa Romero

Stellar Collegiate

Notre Dame Schools of Milwaukee

St. Anthony School

Community Activities and Outreach

Primeros Pasos focused on providing education on how to support the development and education of young children. The day included a panel of development and education experts, raffles, trick or treat for children, and a display of community resources.  This event was organized by Penfield Children’s Center and free to the community.

Both these events were hosted by the American Cancer Society as an annual celebration of life and survivors. It was created to bring awareness to health preventation and education services. It is free to the community.

Project Semilla

Project Semilla (The Seed Project) was developed to draw attention to the diverse strengths and resilience of Latina/o families in our community, and to provide a small seed of hope and support to local students who may have been experiencing fear due to the political climate. Students, faculty and staff decorated bookmarks that had the following quote:

“They tried to bury us.

They didn’t know we were seeds.”

 -Mexican Proverb