Ethnic Media Panel Delivers Message to UMass Lowell

Seminar panelists included, from left, Eduardo Siqueira; Asst. Prof. Lisa Abdallah of Nursing and co-investigator; Dalia Diaz; Eduardo De Oliveira; John Rudolph; Sidney Liang; and Maria Brunette, assistant professor of Work Environment and co-principal investigator.

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When you think of the media, the Boston Globe or Lowell Sun may first come to mind.  But a panel at a recent School of Health and Environment seminar says, “Think again.” 

As the diverse landscape of cultures and ethnicities expands within our region, so too does the ethnic media.  A critical conduit for UMass Lowell news, ethnic media outlets offer a wide variety of information to immigrant communities who live in cities and towns in the Merrimack Valley.

At the seminar, the project team distributed a practical media catalog with descriptions and contact information of Brazilian, Spanish and Southeast Asian newspapers and radio shows in the Merrimack Valley. To download a copy of the catalog, visit the project website at www.uml.edu/newvoices.
 
“We encourage everyone at UMass Lowell – admissions, all departments and research centers – to use the catalog as a tool to start communicating with ethnic newspaper reporters and radio producers,” said Eduardo Siqueira, principal investigator of the New Voices Project and assistant professor in the Department of Community Health and Sustainability.  “We don’t need to translate materials or speak their language to share our information with them.”

These newspapers and cable programs play an important role in bridging the gap between the University and immigrant communities that would benefit from learning about health, safety and environmental issues as well as UMass Lowell’s educational opportunities.

The seminar panelists included Dalia Diaz of the Spanish newspaper Rumbo; Eduardo De Oliveira of EthnicNewz.org at UMass Boston; award-winning journalist John Rudolph and Sidney Liang of the Voices of Cambodian Children radio show.

The panel members said that an easy way to work with them is to send press releases through e-mail. They also encouraged faculty and staff to contact them with ideas about ways to collaborate on an ongoing basis.
 
For the next few months, the project team will develop school programming and materials for the local immigrant radio and print media outlets. Topics will include the School of Health and Environment’s academic programs, and how to improve worker health and safety through toxics use reduction and how to prevent and manage chronic disease such as diabetes.

The ethnic media seminar was the result of the “New Voices for Health and Environment in the Merrimack Valley” Signature Initiative Project of the School of Health and Environment.  The project is a collaboration between the UMass Lowell Student Broadcast Media Center and faculty from the departments of Community Health and Sustainability, Nursing, and Work Environment.