Countywide : Federal Grant Funds Summer Mural Jobs for County Youths

As Ana Perez, 17, of Fillmore and five other Latino youths paint a brightly colored mural at the Fillmore Senior Center, they are slowly revealing the themes that are important in their lives.

Ana painted a graduation scene with a boy and girl dressed in caps and gowns.

“That’s a good symbol for encouraging people to graduate,” said Ana, who earned her diploma this year from Santa Paula High School.

Ana pointed proudly to the beginnings of an image of Candelaria, the last of the Chumash Indian basket weavers in Ventura County. Candelaria and a California condor flying overhead will represent the area’s indigenous culture in the 17-by-50-foot mural.

“It’s like trying to say everything is interlocked,” said Jaime Estrada, who is coordinating the project for El Concilio del Condado de Ventura. “One’s existence depends on everything else.”

The youths are creating the mural on a wall of gray cement blocks as part of a six-week federally funded employment program run by El Concilio, an Oxnard-based Latino advocacy organization.

Two smaller murals also have been painted as part of the program, one inside the Boys & Girls Club in Moorpark and the other at Chino’s Market in Santa Paula.

The youths, ages 15 to 21, earn $4.25 an hour, 30 hours a week for six weeks.

In addition to mural painting, the youths have been doing jobs such as grounds-keeping, child care and clerical work in Moorpark, Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru.

“This allows the kids to work, develop some kind of work ethic, learn a little about themselves and how to get along with their peers,” said Lonnie Miramontes, community services director for El Concilio.

The program, funded by a $200,000 grant from the Ventura County Job Training Policy Council, began July 27 and will end Sept. 4. The council received the funds as part of a $1.1-billion emergency urban aid package signed by President Bush in late June in response to the Los Angeles riots.