Our new monthly show, Storytellers of Color, airs on the second Monday of each month as part of A Public Affair on KGNU. The main goal of the show is to provide a safe space for communicators of color, through a series of conversations to elevate their voices and discuss issues of equality in the media. The show is inspired by recent gatherings of various working groups, including Latinx Voices, organized by Diamond Hardiman from Free Press’ News Voices Colorado Project, and Journos of Color Network led by Tina Griego, reporter, editor, and coach from Colorado News Collaborative.
This time on KGNU’s Storyteller of Color series, Mar Matlak will share local narratives that expose the lack of access to drinkable water, nutritious food, and exercise in our local immigrant community living in Boulder.
The main goal of this series is to provide a safe space for communicators of color, through a series of conversations to elevate their voices and discuss issues of equality in the community.
Today’s guest, Mar Matlak, is known in our Latinx immigrant community for her work at El Centro Amistad as one of the teachers in a program called ARTESANA that in English means CRAFTS WOMAN but is also a plan on words or a compound of two words — ARTE meaning “art” and SANA meaning “healthy”. Mar was born in Puebla, Mexico, where she attended the Benemerita Universidad Autonma de Puebla and obtained a degree in Translation while working as a journalist. Mar es además una artista, also an artist and an educator.
Listen:
In El Reto, Matlak shares stories from Boulder’s Latino community. She found, overwhelmingly, Boulder’s Latino community faces major health inequalities. Similar to Latino communities across the country, Latino’s living in Boulder lack access to clean drinking water, healthy food and forms of exercise.
She says in her book, “Over their lifetime, US adults have a 40% chance of developing type 2 diabetes. But if you’re a Hispanic/Latino American adult, your chance is over 50%, and you’re likely to develop it at a younger age. Diabetes complications also hit harder: Hispanics/Latinos have higher rates of kidney failure and blindness.”
The HEALTH PROMOTERS or PROMOTORAS DE SALUD is part of TRENDS Reporting Fellowship, a program supported by the Community Foundation of Boulder County, KGNU and the Knight Foundation. If you want to check the final project in Spanish click here.
The Storytellers of Color series is a collaborative effort, with an open invitation to other storytellers to come into our airwaves, to tell their stories, and to occupy the safe space that we are providing every second Monday of the month.
Watch the show: