LOS ANGELES - 8 Filipino older adults, called Senior Peer Educators (SPE’s), graduated on February 28, 2009, from FASGI’s OpenHealth Diabetes (OHD) Project funded by The California Wellness Foundation. After completing an 8 week Train-the-Trainer lecture series on diabetes awareness and management, the graduates, who are from different community based organizations (CBO’s) received their graduation certificates. Based on their commitments, the SPE’s will now educate other Filipino older adults what they have learned about diabetes, thereby promoting health awareness and management in their communities. OHD is an offshoot of FASGI’s Healthy Active Lifestyle Project (HALP) which showed that an alarming number of Filipinos had diabetes. In fact, according to the 2007 California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), 9.2% of Filipinos in Los Angeles County, have diabetes and rank the highest compared to any other Asian population, including the Chinese, Japanese, Korean, South Asian or Vietnamese. OHD was launched to address this increasing health issue among Filipino Americans.
The graduation was attended by members of FASGI’s Board of Directors, Mr. Cris Liban and Mr. John Mina. Also present was OHD head lecturer, Ms. Jennifer Tolentino ,CNM. Participating community based organizations/groups in Los Angeles are Lord of Harvest, Filipino American Community of St. Ignatius (FACSI), Aglow International L.A. Chapter, Pilipino Worker Center (PWC), and Mary, Queen of Our Hope Praesidium of St. Dominic’s Church Parish. Those who graduated are Shirley Bantug, Adela Cabrera, Diane Canizares, Reze Canizares, Luz Carpina, Miguelito Jose, Felip Medina Jr. and Fidel Tutor.
The project is lead by Ms. Jeanette Sayno, bilingual case manager and social worker at FASGI. It is ongoing for 3 years and currently, new CBO’s and SPE’s are being recruited for the next training which will begin on November 2009.
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