If we can help someone, we should, organizer says

If we can help someone, we should, organizer says
Victor Manuel Ramos | Sentinel Staff Writer
October 5, 2008
A former PTA president and mother of four, Josephine Mercado had a full-time career as an attorney in New York City, working first for the city government and then for a private firm that took on civil lawsuits. But she gave up the courtroom and what could have been a lucrative career to become a community organizer -- focusing from the beginning on health issues that affected Hispanics. Mercado, who was born in New York City to Puerto Rican parents, discovered there was a dearth of health information for bilingual and bicultural women like her. Shortly after she moved to Central Florida in 1999, she founded Hispanic Health Initiatives, the Casselberry nonprofit she still oversees. She recently spoke with Sentinel reporter Victor Manuel Ramos.

What is the purpose of Hispanic Health Initiatives?

One of the things we decided to do, when we started, was we were going to eliminate barriers to access to health care. We do all our health-education campaigns at a time and location that's convenient to our community. That's why we go into the churches, the community centers and places that our community is familiar with. And we do it on Saturdays. Everybody was doing things Mondays to Fridays, 9 to 5. That has made an immense difference in participation.

I guess this means that you are a "community organizer"?


I think so.

Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin recently said she didn't mean to insult Barack Obama in her nominating speech when she said being "a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." What does being a community organizer mean to you?

I am making a difference. We are a bridge between the community and the health-care providers. And that has always been our intent. People who can pooh-pooh community organizers are people that lack the compassion for the human-rights needs of our community. To me, health care is a human-rights issue.
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