Announcing the Libraries Without Borders Wash and Learn Initiative (WALI) Award

Posted by Nora Franco on December 14th, 2020 Posted in: Announcements, Consumer Health, Funding, Public Health
Tags: Libraries Without Borders, WALI

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The NNLM PSR is excited to announce a funding award for the Libraries Without Borders (LWB) Wash and Learn Initiative (WALI) National Model! Many of our readers may be familiar with LWB’s work in Minnesota, D.C., and Pennsylvania creating Wash and Learn stations through the NNLM GMR , SEA, and MAR, where libraries collaborated with laundromats to facilitate health information programming to customers and families as they washed and dried their clothes. With the new award, the initiative continues to build upon these projects and activities to create a national, WALI-Health model adaptable for use in different NNLM regions across the U.S.

The major deliverable of this project is the WALI-Health toolkit, which will steer the WALI-Health Program and create a guide for delivering health information outreach to underserved communities through a culturally sensitive and equitable lens. The focus of the toolkit is to provide previous WALI participants continued guidance as well as newly interested stakeholders that would like to partner and successfully implement a WALI site.

This program is primarily supported by myself, Nora Franco (she/her), PSR’s Consumer Health Librarian and Intern Chidinma Ikonte (she/her), 3rd year UCLA student majoring in Human Biology and Society and currently on the pre-med track. Chidinma’s professional interests include working with underserved populations and the relationship between social justice and healthcare, which makes her a natural fit to support the creation of the WALI-Health toolkit. Amy Reyes (she/they), PSR’s Community Engagement Librarian, is also supporting the creation of health literacy components for this project.

Kat Trujillo (she/her), Director of Education and Deputy Director, and Frankie Devanbu (she/her), Technology & Social Justice Fellow are leading the LWB team in these efforts with their innovative models and approach. The two have convened and led the Advisory Committee to provide input and expert feedback on current and future iterations of materials. Stay tuned for the progress on this creative endeavor!