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From SmokeFree Times newsletter, American Lung Association of Rhode Island - May, 1999 p. 3
Tobacco Use Prevention to Family Health: Evolution of Community Involvement and Service
An Interview with Marco S. Andrade
Marco Andrade is a soft-spoken graduate student at the University of Rhode Island. Throughout our conversation he stressed his identity as an immigrant, and outlined his development along a continuum of increasing community involvement. He sees this movement as a series of inter-locking steps beginning in his sophomore year of high school and culminating in his acceptance into a doctorate program.
During his sophomore year at East Providence High School Marco Andrade was chosen to attend a week-long Rhode Island Teen Institute (TI) training retreat. The Teen Institute program focuses on the affirmation of teens as leaders and resources in substance abuse prevention efforts in the state. Teens were empowered to make changes in their com-munities through service. Tobacco control issues were an important component of the workshops. TI was a joint project of Initiatives for Human Development, RI Project ASSIST, the American Lung Association (ALA) of RI , and the Rhode Island Department of Substance Abuse.
Following his TI training, Marco met Catherine Weir, then the coordinator of the East Providence Substance Abuse Prevention Task Force (EP SAPTF). This Task Force was adding a youth peer mentor facet to its tobacco control efforts. Marco Andrade was a founding member of the youth group that designated itself GLAD (Going the Limit Against Tobacco). As members of GLAD, Marco and two other high school youth made anti-smoking presen-tations in East Providence elementary schools using ALA demonstration materials. The EP SAPTF spon-sored Marco's attendance at the first and second annual Youth to Youth conferences for the Eastern seaboard states. As a volunteer he was involved in tobacco prevention activities throughout his high school years until, he graduated in 1991.
He was accepted by the University of Rhode Island (URI) where he majored in psychology and minored in sociology (1991-1995). During these four years of college he had to put his substance abuse prevention activities on hold. He worked at Shaw's Supermarket 25 hours a week to pay for college while maintaining a 3.7 GPA. For seven years, while in high school and all through college, Marco continued to serve his community through Saint Xavier Church in East Providence. He taught Catechism to fifth grade students to prepare them for confirmation in the tenth grade.
In 1996 he was accepted into a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology at URI. Interested in the area of community psychology he began work with Dr. Paul Florin on the Community Research & Services Team. He returned to tobacco control issues through one of the projects he worked on-the evaluation of the various substance abuse prevention task forces in Rhode Island.
Marco's graduate school training involved him with Community Health Centers. He began to work with under-served, immigrant Portuguese-speaking clients in the Fox Point Health Center. Marco is in a unique posi-tion to help this population as there are very few Portuguese-speaking clinicians in Rhode Island, particularly of Azorean background. He is currently finishing work on his Master's dissertation with Dr. Kohn at the Cultural Psychiatry Program at Butler Hospital. His thesis focuses on how families function when one member suffers clinical depres-sion. He is comparing three different populations - Hungarian families in Hungary, and Portuguese immigrant and North American families in Rhode Island.
In the fall of 1998 he took part in a work-shop practicum that looked at acculturation issues between Spanish-speaking mothers and daughters at a Providence Community Health Center.
In November of 1998 Marco began working with the Mental Health Advancement Center, an agency funded by the Mental Health Association of RI that acts as an intermediary between the community and academic institutions. In April he participated in the presentation of a Project ASSIST sponsored multi-culturalism work-shop for community groups.
Marco's participation in youth leadership trainings, peer mentorship in tobacco control, involvement in the evaluation of task forces, and clinical training in community health centers have prepared him for the future. He defines his desired role as that of a culturally competent Portuguese-speaking clinician and health promoter for the Portuguese and other underserved populations in Rhode Island.
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Read other articles in May 1999 issue:
Youth Taking A Stand Diamond Skills