NM orgs awarded money for health, arts

Epidemic gets attention

There's been some movement on the front against drug addiction in New Mexico. We told you last week that New Mexico counties are suing opioid manufacturers and marketers for their role in the epidemic; now, two New Mexico organizations have been awarded $600,000 to address communities' needs. The Santa Fe Recovery Center will partner with Las Cumbres Community Services and other organizations to better serve infants and children caught up in the crisis. If this works, the SFRC plans to apply for more from the feds.

Mad about Horse School

The same week that Deming has declared an emergency due to an influx of migrants, the decision to move a 4-H Horse School event from Albuquerque to Las Cruces in order to house migrants at Expo New Mexico has angered Republican senators (TNM $). The senators say they are not opposed to using the dorms at the fairgrounds to house migrants, but they are concerned that New Mexico youth have been displaced in order to help the less fortunate. The senators sent a letter to the governor about it; but the decision to open up the Expo grounds was made by Expo, and the decision to move the 4-H event was made by 4-H.

They’re in the money

Five Santa Fe nonprofits have won National Endowment for the Arts grants (TNM $). The largest awarded to our city, an Our Town grant, supports relationships between arts organizations and municipal governments to revitalize neighborhoods; that went to the Santa Fe Art Institute (not surprising, given its Midtown-centric Story Maps project last year). Other organizations that got money include SITE Santa Fe, Wise Fool, YouthWorks and Santa Fe Pro Musica.

The fix is in

Fixit Clinics hosted by MAKE Santa Fe are fun events in which folks can bring in busted stuff and try and make it not-busted. They're great money-savers and landfill-savers too. But did you know they're also politically subversive? There are laws on the books for some brands (like John Deere, for example) that say you aren't allowed to fix their products on your own. Learn more about Fixit Clinics and the right-to-repair movement in SFR this week.

Justice for the missing & slain

US Rep. Xochitl Torres Small is demanding answers about deaths of migrant children in US custody. She issued a statement on Tuesday arguing that further investigation into the deaths will help US agencies keep such tragedies from happening again. In a separate but related area of justice, one of US Rep. Deb Haaland's major concerns when she took office in November was missing and murdered Indigenous women, and a new bill (TNM $) would seek justice for them. The federal legislation asks governments to review how law enforcement deals with investigations into crimes against Native women and make necessary improvements. The leading cause of death for Native women age 10-24 is homicide.

Ramp it up

Last week SFR introduced you to Irene Delgado, the first-ever Miss Wheelchair New Mexico. KRQE also talked to her this week about the advocacy she wants to enact with her newfound crown, and both SFR and KRQE mention that she's currently raising funds to travel to the national Miss Wheelchair event in Arkansas, sure to be a unique and uplifting kind of pageant. She's getting closer to her goal, but still has a little ways to go to cover travel expenses.

Our system is broken

With a headline like "Thousands are crossing border for cheap medical treatments," it sounds like another dig against migrants coming to use the US's superior services, right? Wrong. The story is actually about the approximately one million United States citizens who pop down to Mexico each year for anything from dental work to cosmetic surgery. So-called "medical tourism" sent $5 billion to Mexico's economy in 2017.

But wait, there’s more

If you liked last week's cover story from SFR about Nandita Dinesh's fascinating immersive theater project concerning Kashmir, tune in today to the postcast-like video series (vodcast?) Talking Theatre Live from local theater pro Scott Harrison. It's a super informal format in which Harrison gathers his favorite theater colleagues and just talks about the craft for a bit. He hosts Dinesh for about an hour this evening, starting at 6:30 pm on Facebook Live, then it will be archived at Theatre Santa Fe.

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