On Tuesday, Sept. 27, a group of doctors from China with Global Ties ABQ are visiting The University of New Mexico and the Comadre a Comadre Program to learn about its model and the experiences of Hispanic / Latina women who have breast health needs and breast cancer in New Mexico.
Each year, Global Ties ABQ! brings more than 150 emerging leaders from around the world to Albuquerque to meet with their counterparts in: business, education, government, NGO leadership, conservation, healthcare, governance, multicultural societies and much more. The organization connects international visitors, our community and our members to one another through citizen diplomacy and international exchange.
Global Ties ABQ is a membership based organization. Members volunteer their time to host dinners and escort visitors around Albuquerque. Inviting a group of visitors into the average American home has shown to make great strides in eliminating barriers of cultural generalizations and positively impacts International Relations as well as building cross-cultural friendships.
"This opportunity affords us a way to learn form one another and exchange ideas," said Elba Saavedra, principal investigator and program director of Comadre a Comadre. "We are honored that Global Ties ABQ! has reached out to us."
The Comadre a Comadre Program was recently awarded $59,761 from the Susan G. Komen Foundation of Texas, to conduct breast health outreach and navigation to women in Valencia and Bernalillo counties. The Comadre a Comadre Program is also funded by the United Way of Central NM and the Department of Health's Breast and Cervical Cancer Program.
Implemented as a community-based program in 2005, the Comadre a Comadre program was co-founded with the input and participation of six Hispanic/Latina breast cancer survivors, and their loved ones, who shared their experiences about both the lack of culturally sensitive psychosocial support available to them and their own lack of knowledge of services when they were diagnosed.
The Comadre a Comadre program is a culturally and linguistically competent one-on-one peer psychosocial support intervention designed to improve breast cancer outcomes among Hispanic/Latina women newly-diagnosed with breast cancer.
The Comadre a Comadre Model is an innovative approach to peer support and patient navigation since it relies on ethnically and racially diverse breast cancer survivors who have been traditionally an underutilized resource for their community.
To learn more this program, visit Comadre a Comadre.