Making Good for Bad Deeds

Ramiro Cervantes is back on the streets. But these days, he’s there to help, not hurt.

Cervantes, a self-described former gang member who at 14 packed a pistol on the streets of Santa Ana, is trying to help build a sense of community among the city’s poorest residents.

Now 18, Cervantes is one of 12 youth outreach workers at Latino Health Access who are using unique techniques to attack neighborhood problems.

Cervantes, for example, reclaimed a handball court from local gangs and promoted games between fathers and sons at the Spectrum Apartments at 4th and French streets. Now he is organizing skateboarders, who with his help designed a city skate park.

“What’s driving me is passion,” said Cervantes, who spent three years in Juvenile Hall after he was convicted of being the lookout in a drive-by shooting in 1997. “I don’t want to see [other teenagers] go through what I went through.”

Latino Health Access, an 8-year-old organization based in Santa Ana, has always used outreach workers--many of whom have a history of addiction, violence or poverty themselves--to address social problems, said America Bracho, the program’s founder.

The workers are known by their Spanish name, promotores.

The addition of youth workers is vital because they are able to quickly gain the trust of peers who might not otherwise participate in community activities, Bracho said.

“We did not invent the concept of community workers,” said Bracho, a Venezuelan-trained physician who worked with promotores in her native land. “It has been shown that the community can help itself when [members] are trained, particularly in health.”

While the youths work with their peers, 28 adults serve as promotores for older clients. Latino Health Access staffers say they personally know each of the promotores and their families, have faith in their abilities and keep tabs on what they are doing. They say they would be among the first to know if one of the promotores slipped back into his or her old life.

In 1999, the organization received a three-year, $1.4-million grant from the California Wellness Foundation to pay Cervantes, then a volunteer, and the other youths. Cervantes earns $250 a week. Latino Health Access hopes to win more grant money to continue the program.

The results of their work have become apparent this year, with each youth leading an unusual project in Santa Ana’s apartment complexes.

Jazmin Sanchez, 20, set up a fitness group for teenagers that meets several times a week for an hour of exercise and an hour of “teen talk” and writing in journals.

“I’m their age, so they don’t feel like an outsider is coming and telling them what to do,” Sanchez said. “I ask questions of what they want. They feel it’s their own thing, and when something is yours, you take care of it.”

Pilar Vivieros, 21, recruited a doctoral student to the gritty Minnie Street apartments to teach English classes as a way to help residents who have two jobs and little time to attend school. Vivieros is also a student in the classes.

Bracho said the promotores receive initial training, plus weekly follow-up sessions. They also spend six to eight hours a week in mental health informational sessions so they can assist residents who often confide in them.

The promotor system has encouraged adults and youths who have made bad decisions to become outreach workers, Bracho said. It’s a way for them to make amends. Because they have been in trouble, gotten their lives back together and now are trying to help others, their messages are taken seriously, Bracho said.

Cervantes is a prime example.

“Ramiro has this charisma,” Bracho said. “He went through a lot of things. He doesn’t want to go back to jail. He doesn’t want anyone to go to jail.”

Leo Noriega, program assistant, said the workers are taught to be sources of support, “like friends,” to their clients. Youth promotores draw up action plans with the teenagers they help, and adults make up similar plans for those they assist.

For the next three weeks, the promotores will be working on anti-alcohol campaigns in the low-income apartment complexes. The campaign includes songs and slogans, a serape where residents can pin messages expressing their feelings, and information about where they learn more about the effects of alcohol abuse.

Cervantes has organized dozens of teens for the campaign, something he couldn’t have imagined doing just a few years ago. By age 12, he said, he was stealing car stereos. At 13, he was hanging out with a gang.

His peers at the Juvenile Detention Center helped him redirect his life. He was determined to make changes. He now hopes to finish high school and attend college.

Noriega worked with Cervantes for a week when Cervantes first started volunteering at Latino Health Access.

“It never crossed my mind that he would stay with us and do all this,” Noriega said. “He was a different person. Then he opened up. He became more motivated than we ever imagined.”