MAPS Conferences

MAPS has already held two successful Healthy Mind/Healthy Body conferences, one in March of 2002 and one in October 2003, both in Cambridge. The first focused on Traditional and Alternative Healing Practices in Contemporary Portuguese-speaking Communities. The second, A Journey Into Wellness, delved into social, cultural, legal, and health issues as well as the role of the ethnic media in community education and risk reduction. More than 100 providers and others attended each of the conferences, resulting in the sharing of much knowledge about the health of the Portuguese-speaking community as well as heightened awareness of this large linguistic minority community and its needs.

Working with the Portuguese-speaking communities since 1970, MAPS has identified a variety of social and health-related issues that we attempt to address not only through our direct services, but also through advocacy and community capacity building efforts such as a conference. MAPS would like to make these events a vehicle through which we inform the community and its service providers, as well as create a larger forum to better address some of the identified issues by the past participants.

MAPS has used the conference series as a new tool in the agency's continuing effort to break down service and education barriers, improving community members' access to the information and services they need to live healthier lives. The conferences also bring together individuals from the diverse segments of the Portuguese-speaking community and highlight not only their differences but also their similarities. Our cultures, races, genders, religions, social and economic backgrounds are distinct from one another, yet they overlap in many ways as a result of a shared history, language, and experience as an immigrant in this country. We depend on one another to strengthen the health of our communities and ourselves.

For more information about MAPS conferences, please click here to email us.