CAP Program Highlight: LUES

Latinos Unidos Enfrentando el SIDA (LUES)

LUES is the Spanish language acronym for Latinos United Confronting AIDS. LUES provides culturally driven HIV prevention education in the Latino community. Over the past four years, CAP has seen the number of its Latino clients increase by 31%. Based on the continued disproportionate effects of HIV in the Latino population combined with feedback from the community, CAP secured funding from the United Way to expand its prevention efforts in the Latino community.

The goal of LUES is to reduce stigma and promote healthy behaviors in relation to HIV and STDs through education, training, outreach, and social marketing. Partners include Multnomah County Capacitation Center, the Oregon Council of Hispanic Advancement (OCHA) and Hacienda CDC.

LUES works with Latino youth to develop and produce social marketing materials. Middle school and high school students participate in age appropriate and culturally relevant sessions learning HIV and STD information, as well as information on how to use the media as a tool for educating their communities. With the support and guidance of CAP staff, youth produced six short radio novellas. They were broadcast on the radio in Spanish, reaching thousands of listeners with messages about HIV prevention, and are now available on CD.

In collaboration with the Multnomah County Community Capacitation Center, LUES provides HIV capacity building training to Community Health Workers. Sessions are based on popular education. They also offer two popular education basics trainings per year and will be offering an STD training in the near future. In addition to the trainings for community health workers, shorter trainings are offered for more informal HIV Educators ideal for groups interested in creating HIV experts in their community (church groups, alcohol and drug treatment groups, etc). Some of last year's Educators include Hacienda's parent involvement group.

LUES participates in several community events per year. Events vary from film screenings to health fairs. We usually partner with county health departments to conduct on-site testing at these events.

Cascade AIDS Project conducts outreach and education in migrant camps and with day laborers. These critical services bring HIV education and testing to populations at increased risk for HIV and late detection. In the camps, our long-time partner, Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center, provides mobile medical care services and Washington County Health Department does rapid testing. At the day labor site, Outside In provides medical services and testing.

For more informations, contact Maricela Berumen at 503.278.3867.