Often, Filipino migrants working as caregivers are at elevated risk for various health risks because of their occupation and worries about family in the Philippines. This version of CARE Project hopes to understand the experiences of caregivers working in their jobs, physical and mental health outcomes and being a migrant to the US through surveys and in-person interviews with Filipino researchers.

Are you a Filipino Caregiver or know one living or working in the Bay Area?All caregivers who participate will receive a $20 gift card for their time and participation.

The first round of the CARE Project began in 2011, in partnership and collaboration with the remarkable Filipino caregivers of MIGRANTE Northern California, wonderful organizers and volunteers at the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco, CA, NAFCON (National Alliance for Filipino Concerns), GABRIELA USA, and Dr. Robyn Rodriguez from UC Davis. That version was a participatory action research project where we partnered with Filipino care givers to do interviews with other caregivers about their logics for migration.

This is a brief description of the project’s goals:

The ‘CARE’ in CARE Project stands for Caregiver Research. The project’s primary goal is to collect the stories of caregivers in our community to understand what they are going through. The CARE Project will train caregivers, and other community members, how to do research about their work conditions and their lives. After 6 training sessions, you will be a certified CARE Project researcher. You will also be given leadership development training so that you can have the tools to address the issues that emerge from the research.

During what we call “CARE Project 1.0” Trainings, the group of Filipino caregivers, community members, students and professionals collectively:

• Unpacked and unlearned the mainstream definitions of knowledge and research
• Conceptualized the main issues of caregivers in the Bay Area
• Written a kuwentohan guide in English and Tagalog
• Conducted interviews with one another
• Collected over 50 interviews in over 4 talk-story, kuwentohan sessions
• Helped to start a CARE Project in San Jose/South Bay

Media about the CARE Project:

Our first CARE cohort graduated on March 21, 2012 at the FCC and its was super awesome. New American Media covered us!

Hyphen Magazine did a full story on the CARE Project, HERE!

Since the 1.0 version of the CARE Project, I’ve continued to conduct research about the lives and experiences of Filipino/a caregivers in the San Francisco/Bay Area. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I, with a team of research collaborators–undergraduate and graduate students at SF State, UC Davis, UC Berkeley–we conducted kuwentuhan via Zoom and, when safe, in-person.