Moderator: Welcome everyone to today's live podcast of More Than Medicine with Dr. Ngozi Ezike. We appreciate you all being here at Mount Sinai Hospital today, and would like to welcome our guests, Luis Gutierrez, who is the Director and Founder of Latinos Progresando, one of our longtime partners here at Sinai Chicago.

More Than Medicine is a discussion of issues of health equity and how we work together to improve access and opportunity for our community. So, today we will be doing this live. So we want to welcome everyone who's live streaming with us via YouTube, as well as our studio audience. We will have opportunity for Q and A at the end.

If you're on the live stream, please submit your questions via the chat. We'll try to get through as many as we can. If you're in the audience, I ask you to come up. And come to the microphone. We want to make sure that we are recording this and that our live streamers can hear your questions as well. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce our President and CEO at Sinai Chicago, Dr. Ngozi Ezike.

Ngozi Ezike, MD: This, this is so exciting. Hello everyone. Again, I'm Ngozi Ezike and welcome to our first live podcast. This is the podcast More Than Medicine. And I can't tell you how excited I am to be here, not just with my really good friend, but one of the most collaborative and visionary leaders I have ever had the opportunity to work with.

So this is a very special treat and I want to thank you whether you're joining us here in person or if you're online. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to be diving deep into a topic that is crucial, is crucial to the wellbeing of our communities, and that's health equity and justice. And again, no better person for me to be talking about this with than Luis Gutierrez.

He's the Executive Director of Latinos Progresando. He and his team are doing incredible work to support the Latino community, advocating for healthcare access, educational opportunity, economic investment and development. So we'll be discussing the important role that community organizations like his play in dismantling systemic inequities and supporting the health of underserved populations.

So, (Speaking Spanish)

okay. Alright, so I know the incredible story of Latinos Progresando and it start more than 25 years ago with one great start leader employee who's here right now. But I'd like you to tell us a little bit about how this came to pass and what that mission was and how you got started doing this.

Luis Gutierrez: Well, first of all, thank you for the kind words. It it is, uh, so nice.

Host: They're true. They're real. True.

Luis Gutierrez: I appreciate that. But it is so nice when anybody says anything like that about a person. But when Dr. Ezike says that about you, I mean, it is just extremely flattering. So thank you so much for that. In terms of Latinos Progresando, it's a crazy story.

So I grew up in Little Village. I had no idea what volunteering was. I had no idea what being in a nonprofit was. And after graduating from high school in the early 1990s, I had a friend whose name is Edgar Hernandez, who's actually sitting right there. Edgar and I met in kindergarten. And Edgar, in his freshman year at UIC, he started volunteering for a group that was helping people apply to become citizens because there was a proposition in California called Proposition 187 that was really coming down hard on the Mexican community in California that wasn't documented.

And so Edgar, being the amazing human being that he is, would call me all the time and tell me about this work. And I would always say, Edgar, I'm so proud of you for doing all this stuff. This is incredible. You're great. And then he would say, you should come out and volunteer with us. And I'd be like, I would love to.

When is it? He'd say, Saturday, eight o'clock in the morning. I'd be like, whoa, whoa. Doing slow. I slowed down right there with the eight o'clock in the morning on Saturday. You know, I was, I was in my early twenties or whatever. And, again, that was not what was on my mind. And so he never gave up on me.

He kept persisting, he kept asking. And then one day he called me and said, there's a workshop two blocks from your house, and if you don't go to this, you're just a punk. And I was like, okay, Edgar. Workshop I think started at eight. I probably got up at eight. I walked over to the workshop and when I walked in, I saw what I still think is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life.

I saw a bunch of young people that looked like me, helping a bunch of people that looked like my parents, and I had no idea what this was. I just knew that I fell in love right there and I wanted to be a part of that. And so from that workshop forward, I started volunteering every Saturday. I was the first one there, the last one to leave.

Eventually ended up getting a job and that led to me a couple years later, starting Latinos Progresando with all the money I had in my pocket. And so it was a really scary time, but also very exciting.

Host: So what was the initial mission like? What did you set out to do?

Luis Gutierrez: So when we first opened the doors, I didn't really know how to do anything. I was 24 years old when I first opened up Latinos Progresando, so I knew how to do citizenship work. And so I was helping as many people become US citizens as possible. But we all know what happens when you help somebody, when you help somebody and you start to develop trust, everyone starts to ask you about everything else, right?

And then in the case of immigration, it's also really difficult because a lot of times when you start to expand services and you start helping people do other things, you start to realize that part of what your work is is to deliver bad news. So you have to say to people, you know what, I'm really sorry. There's nothing you can do as the law stands right now.

And so immediately, every single person that you talked to about that, every married couple that you talked to about that, their first reaction was always, I have a son. I have a daughter. They want to go to school, what do I do? And so that kind of led us to start working on advocacy and at that time we really started to get into what was called the Student Adjustment Act, which then turned into the Dream Act.

And then the more work you do with community, the more that you start realizing that it's not about one issue, it's about many issues that affect the person, the family, the community. And then you start to expand your services and you realize really quickly, I hope, that you can't do it alone. It's not one organization.

It is all of us together doing this important work.

Host: Yeah. There's a great proverb that I always like to quote that if you want to go fast, just go by yourself, but if you want to go far, go with others. And I think that's something that you have done so well in just bringing communities together, different organizations together, understanding that there's not one person or one entity that's going to get that ball all over the finish line. We know that there are a lot of barriers. I mean, there are a lot of barriers just in the constructs of the society we live in. But when we talk about barriers to healthcare and specifically for Latino communities, a lot of challenges, but what do you think are some of the most pressing challenges that still need to be addressed?

Luis Gutierrez: Wow, that's a great question. And I sigh because the environment is different than it was six months ago.

Host: Yes.

Luis Gutierrez: So six months ago, all of these same barriers existed, but I feel like it's all of these same barriers in fast forward with direct attacks aimed at our community, and so the issue of language, the issue of being undocumented, the issue of trusting institutions, particularly government institutions at a time where you have an administration that is using those institutions that are meant to serve people, as a way to attack them. It becomes an extremely difficult time for you to go out into community and say come in. Trust me. Trust us, when people in our community feel like they're being, I don't want to say hunted, but

Host: targeted.

Luis Gutierrez: But targeted. Yeah. That's a, I'm sorry. I was, I was lacking the word there, but it's just so difficult for people right now.

Host: Yeah. Yeah. So you have to persist. Yes. You have to carry on and do this important work. So let's focus on some of the big wins. This is your chance to tout your successes and what your organization has been able to do in collaboration with others. What can you stand on and say, you know, this is, we're making progress.

Luis Gutierrez: Well, I think there are a number of things that when you talk about big wins, that we've been able to accomplish. So one of the things, when I started Latinos Progresando, we opened up in a very small office on 18th Street, second floor. It was smaller than this room by a lot. Uh, we ended up, during the crash, we ended up moving back here to our neighborhood where I grew up, which is really cool.

But we ended up closing our Pilsen office and moving down here. One of the things that we realized pretty quickly was that there was not a lot of collaboration that was happening in this area. And so we started up something called the Marshall Square Resource Network. So the Marshall Square Resource Network, focuses on four issue areas, education, health, peace initiatives, and community response.

And so seeing all of the partners coming together to work on a community plan that we can then execute as a group, has been a huge win, and Raul is also here with us, Raul Garcia, who is the co-chair of our health committee, who also works with Sinai, who's been doing incredible work. Our community response committee has been fantastic, and I'll just say at this moment, right before getting here, I got a call from my community programs team that there's a fire, just down the street from one of our local school partners.

And so unfortunately, that is a tragedy that we're going to have to deal with. Fortunately for us, we have a community response committee that is going to wrap themselves around those families to make sure that they have the resources that they need to get through this tragedy. So, the collaboration is extremely important.

There are many other wins. Our health committee, some time ago decided that we were going to do a walkability study because one of the things that we found out was that obesity was really high in our community, and it was one of the biggest health issues that we were dealing with. So our health committee said, let's do a walkability study in the neighborhood.

And one of the things that came back is the community's really dirty. And so trash was affecting walkability of people and affecting their mental health. So we partnered up with Clean Slate. Clean Slate now comes out once a week and they clean up our corridors and some of our streets. That then led to working with social emotional learning, a partnership with the Lincoln Park Zoo.

They train parent leaders in four different schools. Some of those leaders then start to think about air quality. Something else that affects their health. They want to walk more, but they don't know what the air is like in the neighborhood. So we partnered up with the Nature Conservancy. We ended up working on an air quality program.

We found out that the air quality here was not as good as it was in other neighborhoods, and our parents identified that trees were a big issue. And so last year we planted over 120 trees on our Cermak corridor, and this is all work that's coming out of our health committee to increase walkability, lower obesity, reduce stress, increase your mental health. So it's all, there are many wins.

Host: Yeah. No, no, no. That's that. Those are huge ones. Let's give a hand for some of those.

Luis Gutierrez: Thank you.

Host: That's incredible and you know working Sinai Chicago into this because, you know, we consider ourselves a, an incredible partner and collaborator with you in this same work. Your goals are our goals as well, and so, tell me more about some of the great collaboration specifically with Sinai Chicago to create some of those holistic solutions for health and wellbeing in our community.

Luis Gutierrez: Sinai Chicago helps us to think about what a community plan would look like and helps us to put that on paper and helps us to execute it. But they also do a lot of this community response work. So if you all remember not long ago, there was a measles outbreak and there was just a huge scare in our country and in our city. Immediately we turned to Sinai Chicago. Sinai Chicago then started to provide webinars for us to train nonprofit leaders on how to deal with the issue of measles in their communities and how to respond to that issue. In addition to that, we just in partnership with Sinai, trained 16 community leaders on mental health services and how to be the first responders when there's a mental health issue in our community, and that's extremely important because in our communities, when you have an issue of mental health; it becomes really difficult at times, especially now, to pick up the phone and call somebody. You don't want to call the police because you're afraid.

You maybe don't want to call 9-1-1 because you're afraid. But our parent leaders are trained to deal with that as first responders, and so it's been a huge victory for us. And so anytime that we have, again, I'm going to be reaching out to Sinai right after this because leaving this meeting here, I'm going to go figure out how this fire has affected the families there.

And Sinai has a great program called Under the Rainbow that helps us with mental health services. And so in these situations, Sinai has always stepped up to provide mental health services for the families that have been affected, that are asking for the service. And so those are some of the things that we've been doing with Sinai.

Host: Yeah, I would just highlight that we are, we are your partners in mental health, whether it's adults or children, inpatient or outpatient. We've been expanding our services and making sure that we are bringing on bilingual speakers to make sure that we can communicate effectively with our patients and our community.

So, we know that mental health challenges are a thing for everyone. We also know there are increased stressors as being an immigrant. And so, that can lend to additional mental health challenges. But as you mentioned, because of the, maybe the climate and the environment that we are in, it's even more difficult to try to go for the help, not to mention the stigma that I think still exists in our community. So what are some other support systems that we should be looking to put in place to help get over the stigma and really encourage people to get the resources that they need?

Luis Gutierrez: Well, I think Sinai through our health committee does a great job of working with nonprofit leaders just normalizing this, right. Helping us to understand that we all go through this issue. We all need someone to talk to. We all need support. And so continuing to normalize the conversation, I think is going to be huge.

But I think also providing the resources when something happens, both in an case of emergency, but just being proactive in setting up these trainings. You know, we did these trainings for the 16 parent leaders, they're already asking for more. And so there is I think a hunger from those of us who understand the issue, to learn more and to do more. And I think there's a great opportunity for us to continue to expand that work.

Host: Yeah. I'm going to switch gears a little bit, but it's all connected because all the work that needs to be done, a lot of it sometimes involves, like you mentioned, the need for advocacy. You know, and so policy changes might actually be the solution that you need for some of the problems. Where does Latinos Progresando, where are some of their advocacy work focused, and what are we trying to achieve?

Luis Gutierrez: That's a, that's a great question. I'm looking at it right now in two buckets. I think the first one is to defend what we have now, because I think there are a lot of things that are trying to get pulled away from the important work that we've done. Luckily, I think we live in a great city, in a great state where our leaders here really understand the importance of this work. But there still needs to be work done to make sure that we protect what we've already built.

Host: Yeah.

Luis Gutierrez: So that's kind of bucket number one. The second bucket, and I think this is one of the coolest things ever. You know, years and years ago, I don't even remember how many years ago, but it's been a while, we started up a collaborative called One Lawndale. Right? And it was at the beginning, wasn't even a collaborative, right? Rodney Brown from with the North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council.

Host: Let me make sure we set the stage. Like we are in North Lawndale and just connected to us is South Lawndale. So South Lawndale, predominantly Hispanic, Mexican, North Lawndale, predominantly African American. But when you think about these two communities, a lot of similar issues, a lot of similar, you know, disparities and inequalities that need to be addressed. And so get to this One Lawndale.

Luis Gutierrez: Yes. And I grew up in South Lawndale and I grew up four blocks from North Lawndale. And I never met a black person until I went to high school on the south side. And that's an absolute tragedy. That is something that I never want anybody else to have to go through. And so part of our work has always been to figure out how to build stronger relationships with our brothers and sisters in other communities, especially North Lawndale. And so Rodney and I were introduced to each other, actually by the Lincoln Park Zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo staff had said, Hey, you know what, you all seem to be doing some similar work. And so I ended up having a conversation with Rodney. And you know, we're talking about, we share a train station, two train stations actually. We share a park and we're like, you're working on education. I'm working on education. You're worried about housing, we're worried about housing.

You are working on helping your business owners. We're working on helping our business owners. What are we doing? Why aren't we doing this together? And so that small conversation between two people then started to build something. And you know, I like to talk about collaboratives in the sense of real things that happen rather than what you put in a grant.

Because sometimes when you talk about foundations and funders, I love all of you funders. You are my favorite people on earth. But sometimes when you talk about that, there's this real need to execute now. You need to do this now. And so real relationship and real collaboration takes time because you have to build trust.

And so what we started to do is we said, well, we have this beautiful park. Why don't we have a cookout? Right. Why don't we just start to bring our organizations together and start to hang out and have conversations? That led to more conversation about what some of the issues that we were dealing with are.

And so from that we started to figure out, well, Rodney, I know this funder at the Chicago Community Trust that is actually interested in funding X, Y, and Z. We were able to connect funders to some of the organizations in North Lawndale. During COVID, Rodney calls me and we were di, I mean, food was a big deal during COVID and we were dealing with a real issue of families not having food.

And Rodney called me and said, Hey, I got this huge grant I want to share with you so that you can help feed people in South Lawndale. It's one of the most beautiful things that has ever happened. Right. And you started to see real collaboration between organizations in South Lawndale and organizations in North Lawndale.

And now I think my favorite part is that now we're building community centers. So we have what we're calling our One Lawndale campus that is being supported by United Way. We had an opportunity while we were building our community center to pitch United Way for funding for our organization's building.

What we did is we went in and we pitched them funding for a couple of buildings, and we said the One Lawndale campus includes Sinai. It includes Carol Robertson Center for Learning. It includes the One Lawndale Children's Discovery Center. It includes New Covenant and includes NLCCC, and it includes Latinos Progresando. And United Way, United Way funded us for a million dollars. That we were then able to use to kick off a lot of these projects. And so I'm hoping that over the next year or two we're going to see some ribbon cuttings. I know we're breaking ground on at least one project coming up in the, in the year, so it's been a really exciting way to do some work and the advocacy for us now, is how do we start to get our city and our state as well as philanthropy to look at our area and see these amazing projects and start investing real dollars to make sure that these safe spaces happen?

Host: Yeah, and I, I will say that to the funders, I was with the funder just last week that like, they're looking for collaboration. They're looking for things that are bigger than one entity or one organization that is cross-cutting, that it's intersectional. And so, it's the right thing to do. And you know, I think there are dollars that will continue to support those kind of bigger ideas that bring everybody to, to the table and work.

Luis Gutierrez: One of the coolest things too is that there are other people now that are doing One Lawndale projects that go beyond anything that we've done. And so I know, for example, I got an email, that was last year, One Lawndale Arts and Act, Activism Incubator. So a nonprofit that started up to bring young people from North Lawndale and South Lawndale together to work through art on building bridges is absolutely amazing.

We had nothing to do with that, right? There was just, other than showing that this work is possible, but then you have leaders and community that are saying, Hey, that is something that speaks to my heart, and they're able to put something behind that. Which is absolutely amazing.

Host: Yeah. And of course we have our One Lawndale Center here at Sinai because we serve directly both communities. And so being able to have that name, which I want to give you and Rodney credit for coining that, really speaks to the unity that's necessary and the unity that we need to advance these similar goals.

Luis Gutierrez: Well, I think, Sinai also shows so much leadership in this space because you're absolutely right. I mean, Sinai asked Rodney and myself to co-chair a committee that brought leaders from North and South Lawndale together, to look at the outpatient center and ask a couple of questions. How do we make this space a space where people from both communities, where they can come and feel at home, where they can come and feel welcomed?

What do we have to do? And so we had a year and a half long conversation and the entire committee voted to call it the One Lawndale Outpatient Center because of this what we see as the future of our city. Right? It is all of us together, not my community versus your community.

Host: That's right. So I, I just wanted to make sure we lifted that up because that name One Lawndale, there's so much packed into it and it's, it's so critical.

Luis Gutierrez: And please, if you're out there and you want to do a One Lawndale thing, go do it. More collaboration is better for all of us.

Host: Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit more about community engagement. Because we know that that's how is it Edgar that got you involved and said, you know, you've gotta be a part of engaging with the community even if it's on Saturday at eight o'clock.

But that's, that's the path to creating lasting change. What do we need to do to engage more? Because sometimes when you're just trying to survive, like you're just hunkered down.

Luis Gutierrez: Yeah.

Host: It's kind of hard to put your head up and think about like who else can I help? But what do we need to do to encourage greater participation, whether it's advocacy efforts or helping decide what should the healthcare system look like? How do we get more people involved?

Luis Gutierrez: That's a great question too, because it's really hard. I sometimes think about people who run organizations. These are difficult times, right? And so you do have your head down a lot, right? And sometimes you're thinking about the future or the funder or what needs to happen. What's in the news today? I think walking over here, I was talking to Monse about, how to reduce stress. And she asked me, are you reading the news every day? And I'm like, I kind of have to because every day I wake up there's something different. And so what do we do in our positions?

I think part of it is. We have to stop. And all of us are in leadership positions. Whether you're running an organization or you're running a program, or you're running a parent group or you're running a youth group, we are all in leadership positions and I think part of what we need to do is stop and we have to listen.

There are a lot of people in our community that are extremely intelligent, extremely passionate, really want to work on something, and we need to stop and listen to them. I think there is a mistake out there that leadership means I'm going to tell you what to do. That's false. Leadership is listening to people.

Leadership is trying to understand the best way that you can, and then opening doors so that people can live their full life, right? Then have that experience. I always talk about giving people the opportunity to do something is incredibly valuable and it will change your life. It will change their lives, and so I think in all of these situations is sitting back and listening, and I will say this too, right?

It's hard. Because listening, you're not always going to like what you hear. I think when you sit down with people, you have to understand that we're all people. And that means that we all have great days and that all means that we sometimes don't have great days. And that means that sometimes we're doing really well.

And that sometimes it means that our family members are sick and that we have to create space for you to be able to tell me that. And have that be okay. So this type of change and this type of leadership, which is extremely important, doesn't happen overnight. You have to create space for that. You have to be able to give people the opportunity. You have to listen, and you have to rinse and repeat.

Host: Yeah, I mean, I think the line is like, right, we have two ears to listen and only one mouth to talk, so you should be listening twice as much as you're talking. Right. But I would say in terms of leaders and people being able to figure out ways that they can take care of themselves, I want you to know that that's why we have a monthly lunch together, because I love talking to you.

I love the hope that you bring, and even when things are rough, you know, we still have to figure out how to look at the glass as half full and try to keep moving. And so I think we missed last month, but I think, you know, but I think, being able to connect with other people and know that sometimes it can be lonely, but you have to, you have to talk to others and try to refill that cup of energy and vitality to keep up the fight.

Luis Gutierrez: It's so interesting. I think the last time that we had lunch, I asked you why you do this type of work. I don't want to answer for you. I'm going to ask you, why do you do this work?

Ngozi Ezike, MD: I mean, I don't know what I said that day, but in general, like I think to whom much is given, much is expected. And so if you've been given certain talents and gifts, it's not to go put it in a can and leave it there, but it's to use it and try to see how you can benefit the world. And so some of these tasks are what you say. Is it okay? Anything?

Luis Gutierrez: Is it like consistent? Yeah, it's very consistent. And you said something that it's not a choice. This is what you do and this it's, it was a beautiful thing that I needed to hear that day. I really appreciate the fact that you spent that time with me and you shared that because as you said, these things help you refill the cup.

Host: Yeah. Yeah.

Luis Gutierrez: It's really cool.

Host: Yeah.

Luis Gutierrez: Can I give one more shout out to my man, Carlos Nelson from the Greater Auburn Gresham Development Corporation. Almost five years ago after the murder of George Floyd, Carlos and I got together and we started to talk about how the news was really portraying the Mexican and the Black community not getting along, but we had done so many great things together.

He didn't start G-A-G-D-C, but he was their first executive director. I started LP. He grew it. I grew it, and we're like, why is it so hard? It shouldn't be this hard for the next generation of leaders. So he and I started up something called the Accelerator Fund, and we started to raise money to fund Black-led and Mexican-led nonprofits in Chicagoland.

And so we've been doing that now for four years. We're entering our fifth year, which will be our last year of this fund, but we've raised over four and a half million dollars and we have funded about 86 organizations. And so that is another beautiful collaborative where we're bringing Black and Brown organizational leaders together to talk about again, it is not about one community. It is about all of us working together and building a stronger city. So that's a pretty cool dude. Shout out to you, Carlos.

Host: Thank you.

Luis Gutierrez: And it was his birthday last week, so happy birthday.

Host: Hey, happy belated. So thank you so much Luis. Thank you for joining us today, and thank you for all the work that you've been doing. I think you were called to this work. Thank you for what you're doing at Latinos Progresando to really advance true equity and support our community. Your insights, as we expected are so invaluable, and I am grateful for the partnership we have personally and the partnership between our organizations.

I also want to thank everyone who came to our first ever live podcast. So whether you're with us right here in the room or you're joining us online, thank you so much. But now I want the engagement to continue with you. I'd love to hear if you have questions, in the audience, or please type them in if you're there online. The floor is yours, please feel free to ask anything of Luis.

Luis Gutierrez: And I hope it was good because this is a lot of pressure. It was the first live broadcast. Thank you. Thank you.

Moderator: We do have a couple, and invite everybody from the audience come up to the mic if you have a question. Don't be shy. The first one, was for both of you, from someone online who said, if you had a magic wand and could fix or eliminate one barrier to health equity tomorrow, what would it be and why?

Host: Yes. Get me the wand. I think we have to, we have to root out racism. I think at the, at the root of it is that we don't feel that everybody deserves the same and so get that out of there, and I think we're going to be well on our way to narrowing these disparities and inequities.

Luis Gutierrez: That's a great answer. The only thing I would add is that my wish and my hope is that more people in our community get activated and start to look at their community as a community and start pushing for what we deserve. Because it is there. Racism is there, there are people that believe that we don't deserve as much or as good as others, and that is absolutely false. But in order for us to have what we deserve, we all have to stand up and fight together.

Edgar Martinez: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the session. It's really been informative. I appreciate it. My name is Edgar Hernandez. And I want to just ask a question for both Dr. Ezike and Luis. What is the message that you would like to have folks that are undocumented, that are facing any kind of health challenges, given the current situation that we're in, that they should be able to continue to seek medical attention or what are the, what are those type of takeaways that you would encourage folks to do so in terms of making sure that they're looking out after their own health?

Host: I would start by saying that preventive healthcare is so critical. If we don't focus on preventive healthcare, ultimately we cannot achieve our fullest health potential. So I would encourage everyone, you know, Sinai is actually very invested in community health workers who are from the community, who are promoting health education.

So people can understand how important it is to get a mammogram, to get your sugars tested, to see the doctor, so that you know what you're dealing with and be able to address it. And so I would just hope that we can raise the volume on just the need to continue getting that preventive care, continue seeing the doctor, so that we can partner for people to have their best health outcomes.

Our doors will always be open to everyone. We're very proud of that being the case for the last a hundred years, and we're working really hard to be able to do that for another a hundred years.

Luis Gutierrez: And I completely trust Sinai, so thank you for saying that because that's absolutely true. It is a really hard question in some ways. Our community is dealing with so much right now. And a lot of it has to do with mental health. I mean, we in our community are being faced with some really difficult conversations and some very, very hard decisions that families are making right now. So I'm going to approach that from a different, slightly different angle and say to folks that the first thing you need to do is, is protect yourself.

I always say to people like, we are at a time right now where you need to feel safe and you have to do what you have to do to feel safe. Stop looking at the news. The news is changing daily. I do believe that if you go down the rabbit hole of watching the news every single day, all day, it does affect your mental health.

There are ways to spend time with your family, and your loved ones. I think you need to be doing those type of things. Walking is free, sitting in your yard, enjoying the sun, trying to figure out really how do you reduce some of that stress. I think it's really important right now, and that's extremely important for those of us who are in positions to be able to say something, to really start to stand up right now and say something.

This is not the time for all of us to be quiet. We have to stand up and say more. And so there has to be that balance.  

Moderator: Another one was and it kind of ties into I think a little bit what you were just saying, Luis. The question was how can individuals, not just organizations, get involved to advocate health equity in their communities?

Luis Gutierrez: The first thing I would say is that there are a lot of great organizations in your neighborhood, and I know that because I'm at Sinai and Sinai's in every neighborhood, so they're great.

So I would say for those of you, I say this all the time and believe me, it helps, you should donate. If you feel that you're in a position to donate dollars, donate money to your nonprofits, including Sinai. Sinai is still a nonprofit. So find an organization that you love and start to donate money.

You can start to bring your friends and family together, host dinners, have conversations about what's going on, have them collect some money, donate that to Sinai. There is so much that you can do there, your dollars count. I think that's the first thing. The second thing is, again, contact your local organizations and start finding out what are they advocating for?

There's a lot going on in Springfield these days. Call your local elected officials, whether it's your alderman, your state rep, your state senator, your congress person, US senators. Call them and tell them to fund this type of work. Call them to stand strong, tell them to stand strong and not cut any services in the healthcare industry.

All of that goes a long way. So there is a lot that you can do. I think stand up and start to do some of those things.

Moderator: A follow up, Luis, who just asked how can individuals specifically become members and get involved in Latinos Progresando?

Luis Gutierrez: We don't have a membership, if you will, but we certainly, you can follow us online and you can certainly donate, but we always have events and one of the things that we're looking at right now, it's really difficult. In our community, we've had to start to reduce public events, which is heartbreaking, but people don't feel safe coming together in community the way that they used to a year ago. And so we are still figuring out how to bring folks together in safe spaces. But there is another group of people like myself who are happy to come out in public and do things.

And so we're going to be having more things like this podcast where we bring people together, have these conversations, and again, you can donate, you can call your elected official at any time. There are many ways to get involved.

Dr. Gina Walton: Good afternoon. My name's Dr. Gina Walton, and I'm a physician here at Sinai Chicago. One of my primary roles is to educate, bring in our next generation of culturally concordant and linguistically concordant physicians, everywhere from the elementary school level, all the way to our residents who we train here. And I wanted to know if you have any programming specifically with Latinos Progresando

or what programming you may feel is needed for our community, to really help that younger group, the elementary age students, the middle school, the high school students, to actually feel emboldened and empowered to become part of perhaps the healthcare field, to come and be the people who will take care of me and my colleagues here, in hospitals like Sinai, Chicago.

Luis Gutierrez: Right now we work with four local school partners and we have a social and emotional learning program. Lincoln Park Zoo is a big part of that program as well. We have been connecting social and emotional learning to nature. We have not yet connected it to the health industry. We have been talking about what something like that would look like, but I'm happy to have a conversation with you.

I think social and emotional learning in general is extremely important for families, also for nonprofit leaders. But there are schools that are now providing that for the students. But again, we're trying to put a spin to it where like, social and emotional learning is extremely important, but how do you partner with, in this case, healthcare? That would be a, that's a really interesting proposition that you just made there. Thank you.

Moderator: So one more and it's a good one to close on. We often hear about challenges, but what gives you the most hope right now for the future of health and particularly Latino Health in Chicago?

Host: I think sometimes you have to go through some very hard stuff to come out better on the other end. And I think we're going to go through some really hard stuff right now, but hopefully the silver lining is that sometimes when you do the hard stuff or you see something that is really not right and that's what's being done, then you come out on the other side.

Everyone is kind of on the same accord that maybe that wasn't right, and then you can build back better. So really hoping that through the difficult phases that we will be going through, that we'll be able to come out, emerge with something much better. I have to believe that.

Luis Gutierrez: I completely agree. I think this is our moment. We always talk about our rights and our freedoms and that's not something that, that you don't get if you don't fight for. And so for all of us here, this is our moment to stand up and fight to make sure that these things happen on the other side.

And so what I believe is that we are going to both rise to the occasion, but you are going to see that there are going to be a lot of heroes along the way that are going to come up. Folks that were like me, that never thought that there was something like volunteering a nonprofit that can make a difference, that are going to suddenly be activated and start organizing their blocks or talking to their families or doing something. And I, I believe that at the end of this, you're just going to see so many more heroes out there that are contributing to making this a better country. And I also know that for those of us that are in the fight right now, that we are not going to stop. That we were built for this moment and that we are going to win.

Host: I think that's perfect. Thank you so much, Luis. Thank you.

Moderator: Thank you all for coming out today. The podcast will be available for download later on, so it wasn't just live today. So, make sure that you check out the link. Go to sinai chicago.org/podcast and you can download this podcast when it's available, as well as all of the other ones that we've done.

Thanks everybody for being here.