Our recent trip to Reynosa and Rio Bravo 5/17/2014
On May 17th we visited Rio Bravo and Reynosa, Mexico to spend some time with the Promotoras- and have a meeting. We brought them down tablet computers (that they had applied and qualified for) to assist them in their work of educating factory workers about current Mexican Federal Labor Law. We had programmed the computers into Spanish for them and added bookmarks and links to the Federal Labor Law website and other items that should be useful for them. We also brought them flyers listing some of the more important (and commonly misunderstood) Labor Laws for them to give out to workers for reference. In addition, we set up an email address for factory workers to report workplace accidents and labor law issues. We distributed cards to the Promotoras that had this email address on it for them to distribute to workers as needed.
We also distributed booklets with financial information for some of the employers who operate factories in the area. This information is to help the Promotoras ensure that the workers get their profit sharing benefit (as required by Mexican Labor Law if a profit is made).
We spent some time with the Promotoras at the Convent of the Missionarias de Jesus, Maria y Jose’ who kindly allowed us to use their meeting room. We used this meeting to do some basic training on the use of the tablet computers and to demonstrate ways that they might be useful in the continuation of the Promotora’s work.
We spent some time talking with Rosa Moreno about the cost estimates that we have gotten from the University of Texas, Southwestern School of Prosthetics and Orthotics to make her Prosthetic Hands. We discussed with her the visits that would be required to fit the hands and gave her pictures of what the hands would look like. We let Rosa know that we hope to have the funds raised very soon so that University of Texas can get started on her hands.
All in all, we felt this meeting was very productive and will help further our cause of educating workers on their rights under the law. See additional photos from all of our recent trips to the border in our Photo Gallery!
