Abriendo las Cajas (Opening Boxes)

Abriendo las Cajas (Opening Boxes), a partnership project between ZeroDivide,
La Cliníca de La Raza, and BAVC, is an innovative multi-media health campaign working to reduce
incidences of domestic (familial) violence amongst the Latin American
immigrant population in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California.

Abriendo las Cajas (Opening Boxes) seeks to provide a safe and empowering space for youth, men, and women of this
community to share their experiences with their families, community,
and general public. The digital storytelling campaign will take family members through a
progression of self-expression, peer sharing, and family healing to
community empowerment and change. Participants will produce tangible
products (digital stories) that will be put to immediate use by a
statewide network of health educators as well as be distributed via
local radio and the Web. In the second year, participants will be
invited to participate in a larger intergenerational media project.

The Abriendo las Cajas
project represents a new way for community-based organizations and
health providers to engage in prevention education, intervention, and
healing using digital media technologies. Using the Digital
Storytelling curriculum developed by BAVC and the Community Technology
Foundation, La Cliníca will engage participants in their successful
Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) prevention program called Proyecto
Cambio. Proyecto Cambio incorporates three program components: a
school-based education program for children, community-based education
targeting adult men and women, and Promotora training focusing on IPV prevention.

New Routes to Community Health is a program of the Benton Foundation, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which is dedicated to improving health and health care for all Americans. For more information on this partnership, please go to: http://newroutes.org/projects/abriendo

Request a copy of the "Abriendo de las Cajas" DVD >

For more information on the "Abriendo las Cajas (Opening Boxes)" project, please contact Jennifer Gilomen, Director of Public Media Strategies.