Thirteen students from the University of Florida – Gainesville spent their spring break in North Carolina learning about and supporting farm workers and interacted with young people in North Carolina who are active in the farm worker movement. The week of action and education was organized by NFWM’s YAYA Coordinator, Lariza Garzon, and NFWM’s North Carolina staffer, Alexandria Jones, and in collaboration with UF’s Florida Alternative Breaks.
Starting on Saturday, April 7th, the group experienced a non-stop seven days of activities. They visited a labor camp and heard from farm workers, gleaned in a collards field, visited a migrant heath outreach project, had a variety of workshops and presentations on issues such as pesticides and farm workers, immigration, and NAFTA and met with a variety of North Carolina social justice groups. The students capped off their week by leafleting on the campus of Wake Forest University in support of FLOC’s Reynold’s Tobacco campaign.
Thank you to the following for hosting the students: Church of Reconciliation in Chapel Hill, Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Greensboro Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the NC Conference of the United Methodist Church, the WE Program at the Hive and the Stone House.
This was a beautiful, empowering and informative experience, I was amazed at the number and quality of the activities we participated in. I feel so informed about what farm workers go through and how unreasonable some of our current industries are. The most special part was meeting farm workers and understanding that these are regular people who love, laugh and share stories; and that no person regardless of where they come from should face prejudice under law. Kumar Vasudevon
