AALV: The Association of Africans Living in Vermont, Inc.

This Friday at 6 p.m., the AALV’s Nasiha Lay Health Educator Project will hold a women’s dinner at the Winooski Community Center.  All African women are welcome to attend.  The purpose of the dinner is to explain some basic information about breast cancer, answer some frequently asked questions, and sign up women for clinical breast exams in June at the Community Health Center of Burlington.  Help your sisters and attend!

The AALV’s partnership with the American Cancer Society is reaching African women. The Nasiha (Swahili for ‘reliable advisor’) Project has 1) explored our community’s perceptions of breast cancer; 2) trained reliable advisors in our community about breast cancer and how to teach others; and 3) begun to educate others about how to recognize the disease and receive a mammogram. The project uses the ‘promotoras’ model of health education: community leaders are trained by professionals on specific health topics and then these lay health educators determine the most effective method of educating fellow community members.

See the program brochures here: brochuresom, brochureswa, brochurefra, brochureeng

The Nasiha lay health educators represent the breadth of Vermont’s African community: 3 Somali Bantu; 1 Congo (DRC); 1 Congo (BRA); 1 Kenya; 1 Burundi; 1 Botswana; and 1 Nigeria. They have decided to hold a women’s community gathering on Saturday, May 10th at the new Winooski Community Center. The gathering will teach women the facts about breast cancer in their own languages and help African women sign up for mammograms. Are you an African woman? We hope to see you on May 10th!