PCUN does a tremendous amount of work with their myriad sub-organizations and partners. For our partnership project, our group aims to work with PCUN on something that aligns with their values and goals as an organization as well as fills a space that they are not yet occupying. Our proposed project, a language exchange or an intercambia between farmworkers and farmers with the participation of Lewis & Clark students. PCUN focuses primarily on social justice issues for the Latinx farmworker community. We believe PCUN also has the potential to combine their resources to address environmental issues within agriculture like pesticide use and GMOs. However, greater communication and dialogue is necessary before PCUN can expand to these issues. For this project we have three key goals:
- Create a space for communication to break down any language barrier between farmworkers and the greater agricultural community.
- Establish regular meetings allowing students to increase Spanish skills and farmworkers to work on their English.
- Eventually use this program to encourage more dialogue on key environmental issues such as pesticide use.