WES Mariam Assefa Fund Grantee Partners

Encuentro

Category: Skills & Supports; Employer Practices; Immigrant Leadership

Amount: USD$200,000

Term: October 2020 – August 2022

Focus: Encuentro is scaling their innovative Home Health Aide program using education, self-employment, and leadership development to address the economic integration barriers that Latinx immigrants encounter in New Mexico’s home health industry.

About Encuentro

Encuentro’s mission is to transform New Mexico into a thriving community for all its residents by engaging Latinx immigrant families in educational and career development opportunities that impart skills which enable work toward economic and social justice.

What type of work will the grant enable?

Encuentro is growing its Home Health Aide program, an innovative and multiple-sector collaborative approach which addresses the economic integration barriers that Latinx immigrants encounter in New Mexico’s home health industry. Encuentro’s approach is engaging immigrant workers, particularly Latinx women, to create dignified and stable jobs for themselves, while transforming economic systems that are inherently stacked against immigrants, people of color, and women. Providing avenues for home health aides to establish themselves as business entities better protects workers while providing greater clarity to potential clients regarding the financial relationship between their caregivers and themselves. Encuentro’s training provides home health aides with the skills and supports necessary to access quality jobs.

Why is this work important?

Encuentro is deeply committed to engaging Home Health Aides as leaders who direct their own career pathways and participate as essential partners with Encuentro in all aspects of the program’s design and implementation. This worker-centered approach provides an important alternative to the profit-centered industry model, and supports low-income caregivers to develop critical skills, improve earnings, and shape policy, while also improving access to higher quality care for the elderly community.