Raleigh-based global health non-profit will continue working with Community Health Workers to reach families still facing inequities as the pandemic continues

After a nearly year-long partnership, Curamericas Global, a non-profit based in Raleigh, that partners with underserved communities around the world to make measurable and sustainable improvements to communities’ health and wellbeing, announces that its partnership with The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) and its Community Health Worker Program (CHW), has reached more than 163,000 people in underserved communities throughout the state.

Since August 2020, Curamericas and NCDHHS have guided more than 200 Community Health Workers across 26 counties within the state, in their effort to reach the most vulnerable and marginalized communities. These families often fall outside of the healthcare system, a problem that has been amplified amid the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of 2021, it became even more evident how essential this partnership was due to the urgent need to bring education and access to vaccines to these communities.

Curamericas, its nonprofit partners and CHWs, have been a source of help to those who needed information about the virus and vaccines. In just six months, their combined efforts resulted in more than 617,000 people receiving education or information about the COVID-19 vaccine. The partners executed more than 830 online and community events where information about the vaccine was shared with families whose communities face numerous inequities when it comes to healthcare, information and education.

As a result, CHWs helped plan or staff nearly 850 vaccine clinics across the state and registered nearly 12,000 people to receive a vaccine. With fact-based information and support from their trusted community partners, nearly 3,000 are now fully vaccinated, with more than 10,600 now awaiting their second vaccination shot.  

“We are honored and humbled to have taken part in the NCDHHS’ Community Health Worker program. We have joined forces with partners, all unified by a common goal to reach those who fall outside of the healthcare system and who thought that they had been forgotten during one of the most devastating global health crises in our history. Our work does not stop here,” shares Andrew Herrera, Executive Director of Curamericas Global.

Curamericas’ expertise in community-based, impact-oriented methodology (CBIO) will further aid volunteers to serve right in the backyard of their own community. Now that Community Health Workers have been trained, they will continue to work within their non-profit organizations to identify and connect underserved families with vital resources, including food, COVID-19 testing sites, unemployment offices, vaccine clinics, transportation resources and more. 

Curamericas will continue to be a support line for communities across the Carolinas, with hundreds of volunteers to help families navigate education, resources, and the prolonged pandemic. In the fall of 2021, the global health non-profit will begin working directly with the City of Durham and other local partner organizations to help address vaccine inequity within local Black and Latinx communities.

“As COVID-19 cases surge again, and new variants spread, we recognize that our work is not over. We will continue to train healthcare workers who work and live within these communities – who speak their language and have developed a trust with those we seek to reach,” says Herrera. “We meet these families where they’re at so we can best understand their needs and connect them to the appropriate resources – food, housing assistance, internet services, and so forth.”

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