COMPASSION FOR FASHION (:

On a Thursday night, I got to attend the Compassion for Fashion with my mentor Vanessa Tuione and the other girls. It was a great fun learning experience. I understood the cause of the fashion show and it was my first I ever attended. Couple of girls and I really found the purpose of the cause for LGBT.

STRESS RELEASE

Just updating my blog, so this past week was very productive. I met up with Alisi to catch on some stuff related to PIPELINE. We met the girls with Jackie at MOLAA and it was a emotional learning workshop for us. We opened up about the stresses we had in our life and how we can release it. That was a great way to learn more about each and one of us. It was a great learning experience.

Mentor Vanessa Tuione

So, I have met my mentor Vanessa Tuione for the first time at the OCAPICA DINNER, but lied about my name so I finally introduce myself. On Monday October 11, I met up with my mentor at the Tongan Community Center in Hawthorne. It was very cool because I got to learn alot more about her. It was great to know the great things she does for the community and was really exposed to more of why she does the work. We got to work on resume and and is working on the career choices that she gave me homework to do this week.

MENTOR MASH-UP

On friday, September 24,2010, I got to see my fellow intern members again. Well, some of them and on thursday was the OCAPICA DINNER, i seen Bri again. I was happy to see everyone. I seen like more than 10 mentors and we had just 7 interns out of 13 attend. It was great to hear the mentors share their story in my group and I related to some of them. I seen the things they did in their communities and how they network with other organizations. I am looking forward into working with the mentors I picked because I like the work they do and really want to see what I can do to learn from this experience. A great guest speaker Tau had alot of opportunities for interest if we got the chance to do it and it was up in the air. Looking forward into seeing everyone again in October and working side by side with my mentors. :)

LAST DAY ! :)

So, I am late on updating on my work on my research. For the past few weeks, I learn so much from this research I can't explain it better in any words. I am blessed that I was able to work with great motivational people who put time and effort in the work they do. I got to learn with time management in getting all the information on the Samoan research project Putu and I was working on in Long Beach and Carson located in Southern California. We presented the work to Dr.Krochalk and found on little things to fix so we can do better on the day we presented to our family and mentors. Thank you for this opportunity. Im outros :)

RESEARCH & COMMUNITY EXPOSURE

This week was the best week I have to say for my research and community exposure. Their was alot of things to do and learn in a week.

Sunday, we worked on our research project and took a long time to get some of the work done. It's been a hectic week and school starts this week.

Monday, worked at SNNA for the breast & cervical cancer workshop and meetings. I got to see SNNA BOARD members in action for their meeting while we were doing the cancer workshop. Chris who was the SNNA BOARD chairman and Alisi let Putu and I experience the job of an interviewer and it was great learning what they do. 2 long evenings for the training which was hosted by Dr. Sela V. Panapasa and her partner. It was a long night all I got to say, but a very good reason.

Tuesday, day 2 at SNNA. We went to a meeting with the pastors for the Pacific Islander American Health Study on our people. It was great to see what the pastors had to say while Dr. Sela was explaining the purpose of this Health Study. The tongan pastors understood the concept and was on board to help outreach the other pastors to do this study into making it happen. I understood it was hard, but paid off at the end. Then later on, had to get ready for training day 2 with Dr. Sela and it was a long night, but we got alot of work done.

Wednesday, got up early to head to SNNA for meetings to attend. Putu and I had to split to attend to these 2 meetings so Putu went with the boss, Dorothy and Chris to attend to the City of Commerce in Long Beach. I went with Genesis to the PATH for women in the O.C. I got to see these wonderful ladies do to help the different organizations contribute to their communities. Kimiko and Alisi were the ones doing the presentation while everyone was getting their inputs and learning along through the process, but overall, a great experience with Genesis.

Thursday, we hosted another breast and cervical cancer workshop again. I thank Laborday, Monika, Eneti, Kerroh, and Terisa for participating the workshop while Genesis was teaching with the helping hands of Putu and I. All the girls like the workshop because it was very informative. Overall, it went great.

Friday, was getting everything together for the posterboard and to finish everything possible to show to my researcher. GOOD LUCK to our presentation. :)

Research and Community Work

Yesterday, August 10,2010 is when I met with my researcher again and did my community work for SNNA. Long day, but it was a great learning experience for me. Putu and I went to meet up with Researcher Dr. Prochalk at CSUDH where we had alot to learn about our research project. We worked side by side on how we are going to get the information on our project together. We talked alot about the different culture aspect in health. We watched videos that could explained more of what were looking for in our community focused group. I was so excited on the research project we got assigned to, but it'll take alot of effort into putting everything together.

We finished our work with Dr.Prochalk that day, but had an hour to meet up with Genesis who is from SNNA to do the cervical and Breast cancer workshop. We had to get 5 girls for this workshop to make it happen and had time to bring along with us our friends from high school, Pookie and Leka with us to the workshop. This was really a great workshop for all of us because we had no clue about these cancers, but that we had family members that had one of the cancer like, Breast Cancer. Genesis, who was conducting the workshop taught us how to be aware of these type of cancer. We ended the day on a good note that we can teach and share the information about the cervical and breast cancer.

Friday was a real busy day. We had alot of great speakers who helped us understand and know what to do with our research.

workshop 3

Friday, the PI Interns had the opportunity to see the work of the communities come together to discuss about the issues in our community, but mainly in carson. We talked about the needs each non-organization was talking about their issue such as gang violence to the health problems needed. It was a great experience to see everyone come together to share their stories and also to know what we need to make it happen.

WORKSHOP 2

Yesterday Friday 07/23/10, we had a great crowd to get the meeting started. More P.I Interns showed up and had great stories to tell about their work experiences. Dr. SoraPark Tanjansiri was a great host with her workshops with journal articles because now I got to fully understand the concept of how to start researching topics will be working. I got to hear people stories about starting their research sites and getting other topics out of the way. It was a great meeting overall.

FIRST WORKSHOP 07/16/10

Today, we just got together to sort out some of the things we needed to be aware about as we get into the workforce with our researchers. Some of the ladies couldn't make it to the meeting but we got some issues worked out. Learn more about the PIPELINE and OCAPICA. We got to see the many health careers and how to get there if we looked at every loop holes we can. Today we accomplished what we will be looking forward to next meeting.

DAY 2 ORIENTATION 7/8/10

Today, we look forward to the long agenda that have been planned out for us. We focused on solutions with PIHCPP and Health Careers as Khushbindar and Alisi who discussed about the overview. We talked about introduction to health research, pathways to health careers, mapping out where you are, stress management, preparing for the future, and reaching for our goals/closing on that day. We had lunch with our researchers and other groups. It was a long, but a day to know all these things to prepare for us as we start our internships. Our day was basically accomplished as we looked at the clock every hour ticking as the sun came to rest.

DAY 1 ORIENTATION 07/07/10

Today, we arrived to our last workshop for the day. I looked around to see familiar and new faces. We had a brief discussion about the topic "What is currently being done to address health disparities among PIs?". Our guest speakers from community partners GCN (Joey), PIHP (Greta), TCSC (Vanessa), SNNA (Dorothy) explaining about their health disparities in the different pacific islanders communities to help our people. We learned alot about its not about the work we recieve, but about the things we do to give back to our community. We wrapped this long day heading to the reception with young ambitious pacific islander womens who are striving for better.