{"id":38522,"date":"2021-08-09T11:11:33","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T18:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=38522"},"modified":"2021-08-09T11:11:33","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T18:11:33","slug":"a-day-in-the-life-of-a-vaccinator-outreach-worker-20-somethings-lead-the-charge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=38522","title":{"rendered":"A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A VACCINATOR OUTREACH WORKER\u201420 SOMETHINGS LEAD THE CHARGE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by\u00a0Ethnic Media Services<\/a><\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0Aug 9, 2021<\/span>\u00a0|\u00a0COVID-19<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Jocelyn Zambrano<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Also available in\u00a0Spanish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A young community worker reveals what a day in her life is like, while campaigning to raise awareness about immunization<\/em><\/p>\n

BY ARACELI MARTINEZ, ETHNIC MEDIA SERVICES\/LA OPINON<\/strong>\u00a0|\u00a0Araceli Martinez is a veteran reporter for La Opinion where this piece also appears.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jocelyn Zambrano, 20, drives up to an hour and a half a day through Los Angeles County, from the Wilmington neighborhood to the San Fernando Valley, thinking about how to get more Latinx people vaccinated against COVID-19.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get up at 5:40 a.m. and at 7 in the morning, I leave for San Fernando,\u201d Zambrano said. \u201cI start at 8:30 am at the office of Pueblo y Salud, a nonprofit organization in San Fernando. I spend the morning planning and starting at 3 p.m., my team and I are going to knock on doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zambrano is studying at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) to become an elementary teacher. Since the end of June when her classes ended, she has been working 40 hours a week on Pueblo y Salud\u2019s outreach campaign for the COVID-19 vaccine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m in charge of a team of five community outreach workers, including myself,\u201d Zambrano said. \u201cWe go out almost every day to educate the Latino community about vaccination and go house to house, knocking on doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

This job has become a mission for Zambrano\u2019s team, most of whom are in their early twenties. \u201cOnly one of us is in her 30s,\u201d Zambrano said. \u201cWe want to see more people vaccinated. I (am) vaccinated and my family are already.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is more than a summer job for the outreach workers, Zambrano said. It is for the entire year. They will continue working part time on vaccine canvassing when they return to classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people speculate on whether or not they should get vaccinated,\u201d Zambrano said of the people she speaks with in the community. \u201cSome of them think there is a chip in the vaccine. Others say they are going to be injected with the same virus; or they ask why they have to feel bad after getting vaccinated when the vaccine is supposed to prevent us from getting sick. There are others who think that it is not free and they have to pay.\u201d<\/p>\n

When neighbors open their door to Zambrano and ask her these questions, she offers them information to raise awareness about the options of where to get vaccinated. She gives them masks and tries to make them commit to receiving the vaccine, helping them with the appointment to receive the vaccination.<\/p>\n

She says that she has found that many people do not want to get vaccinated because they are scared. \u201cOne person told us that one of her co-workers had a heart attack after getting vaccinated,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd because of that, she thinks the vaccine caused it. We explained to her that she probably suffered that incident because she already had some health problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are other individuals who think they must have health insurance to get vaccinated. \u201cThe vaccine is free, and they just have to say no when asked if they have insurance,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n

Zambrano has knocked on doors in communities such as Canoga Park, Pacoima, San Fernando and Sun Valley. She said she is starting to see some success, little by little.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn July 22, we managed to get 10 people vaccinated,\u201d Zambrano said. \u201cIt was very good, because normally the average that we convince to get vaccinated per day is zero to four.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes Zambrano and her team arrange to vaccinate people in their own family homes. \u201cWe just make one call and they come to vaccinate them at their homes,\u201d she said. \u201cOther times, we manage to encourage them to go to the nearest vaccination clinic that will be set up in the following days\u201d.<\/p>\n

Pueblo y Salud works with various hospitals to give vaccines at home. For pop-up clinics, they work with the Fernande\u00f1o Tataviam Band of Mission Indians and Pacoima Beautiful, a nonprofit organization focused on environmental justice in Pacoima.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the State of California\u2019s equity strategies to vaccinate hard-to-reach communities and address vaccine questions, the Pueblo y Salud team decides which neighborhoods to visit in a weekly meeting they have with the San Fernando Valley COVID Rapid Response Table. \u201cWe have an internal website where we can see the areas where people have been vaccinated the least, and we go to those places to raise awareness of the covid vaccine,\u201d Zambrano says.<\/p>\n

Outreach workers do run into people who are completely reluctant to get vaccinated. \u201cWe try not to put too much pressure on them because we want our team to be safe,\u201d she said. \u201cWe never know how they can react.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those cases, Zambrano said she and her team thank them and leave. \u201cWe really can\u2019t keep trying to persuade them when they\u2019ve already made a decision,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s something we have to get over and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Zambrano reveals that Pueblo y Salud hopes to grow the virus vaccination outreach team to a total of eight people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are still looking for people because we entered the vaccination program quite late,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Even with her current staffing level, she says knocking on doors and talking to people about the vaccine is worth it. \u201cEspecially at this time with the Delta variant, reaching people who are not vaccinated is even more important, because this can get worse,\u201d she said. \u201cSo far it has worked because we have managed to get people out of their home to get vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rafael Rinc\u00f3n, 21, another community outreach worker and CSUN student, said he became passionate about the issue because his mother was diagnosed with COVID. Since then, he set out to raise awareness about the pandemic and work to get more people vaccinated.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though my mother had mild symptoms, I don\u2019t want anyone to catch it.\u201d Rinc\u00f3n said. \u201cSo as soon as I could, I (got) vaccinated.\u201d<\/p>\n

When someone opens the door and does not want to be vaccinated, Rafael said he asks them to think about their family. \u201cYou may not necessarily be the one at high risk of getting sick, but you have other members of your household who can get infected,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, think of the other people in your community, not yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

And through talking to Angelenos door after door he said he has learned that the public is not well-informed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is very necessary to raise awareness; and there may be some people who do not go out much to find this information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rafael believes that a lot of misinformation about the vaccine has spread, creating fear; and that is why they need to have the appropriate information available.<\/p>\n

Jocelyn Salazar, 21, a Los Angeles Mission College student, is also a COVID vaccine outreach worker for Pueblo y Salud.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to me because I want everyone to be healthy and protected from the virus,\u201d Salazar said. \u201cMany people from my family and friends have died. We want everyone to protect themselves by wearing masks, with social distance and the vaccine.\u201d<\/p>\n

When visiting families in their homes, Salazar said she is surprised how many people are afraid of the vaccine because of what they hear from friends and relatives instead of paying attention to what medical professionals and scientists say.<\/p>\n

When asked what she would tell someone who doesn\u2019t want to get vaccinated, Salazar said: \u201cI would tell you that I want you to know the resources that exist to obtain the vaccine. I do not want to pressure you. I just want you to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ruben Rodr\u00edguez, director of Pueblo y Salud, says that the message has been constant for the community to be vaccinated, especially Latinx people and African Americans. \u201cEducation is there, and many people want to go, but not to struggle to get it,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to line up, wait, or use the phone to check in or miss work.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said there are other barriers as well: \u201cFor example, the Latino community uses common sense a lot and says, \u2018Why am I going to get vaccinated, if I have to wear the mask anyway?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez said that direct contact works. \u201cSometimes, there are people who say that they have not been vaccinated because they have not had time,\u201d he said. \u201cWe tell them, \u2018I will make the appointment right now,\u2019 and the pop-up vaccination clinics help a lot in this.\u201d<\/p>\n

He concludes by saying that it is challenging to get people vaccinated when they have preconceptions and don\u2019t give it importance. \u201cGoing from door to door does work, because I believe people are no longer paying attention to the radio or TV ads,\u201d Rodr\u00edguez said. \u201cThey are tired of always listening the same. And although out of 100 people we talked to, it is possible to convince one, it is worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with raising awareness about COVID-19 vaccines, Pueblo y Salud also provides alcohol, drug and tobacco prevention programs, Zambrano said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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