Healing Voices Project

For decades, the 2.5 to 3 million U.S. farmworkers and their families have lived in the shadows with substandard living and working conditions, exposure to harmful pesticides and serious injuries, poor access to healthcare and poverty-level wages, and now, the COVID-19 crisis has greatly aggravated their economic hardship and health and safety risks.

Efforts to organize farmworkers to fight for better conditions have been hindered by the high levels of trauma, stress, and insecurity in the community, especially among the 900,000 farmworker women. The COVID-19 crisis has greatly aggravated the trauma and economic hardship for farmworker women, where the majority have reported experiencing workplace sexual violence, and COVID has sharply limited survivors’ access to help.

Justice for Women (J4MW) piloted a new approach that combines Healing + Agency + Action. The “Healing Voices” project is a unique new idea to address a critical gap in the farmworker organizing ecosystem – focusing on healing personal and community trauma as a needed step in increasing power for farmworkers to be drivers of change.

“Healing Voices” piloted the use of technology to engage farmworkers and bring them together in Virtual Support Groups that use the power of storytelling to support healing, teach workers their rights, build community connections, and inspire change.

With support from The Workers Lab, J4MW worked in partnership with us at the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association (NMSHSA), the Eva Longoria Foundation (ELF), Latinx health and wellness experts, and the farmworker communities in California and Florida to pilot test the model with the ultimate goal of scaling up to reach farmworker communities nationwide. Conducted via Zoom for both safety and ease of access for farmworkers, this project is innovative in multiple ways:

Focus on Trauma. The project is unique in focusing on healing trauma as a needed step in increasing power for farmworkers to continue to be drivers of change.

Combining technology and tradition. Support programs for migrant women and farmworkers are rare. Programs using new digital technology are extremely limited, particularly where it comes to healing and resiliency. The program creates a cultural comfort zone by combining the latest in digital and video communication with the tradition of talk circles that still exist in farmworker communities.

Power of Storytelling. Over and over we have witnessed the power of storytelling to support healing, to teach workers their rights, and to inspire change. In the support groups, farmworkers will share their stories and create Video Diaries - in order to mobilize, build power, and influence policy in their own communities and beyond.