Senderos a la Ciencia/Pathways to Science Hispanic Role Model and Mentoring Project

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Senderos a la Ciencia (Pathways to Science) Hispanic Role Model and Mentoring Project Led by Hispanic Access Foundation, the Pathways to Science project will conduct bilingual public outreach to Hispanic communities in New London, Connecticut in the venue of a Hispanic-serving church. By featuring thrilling talks by Latino role model health science researchers, and by offering follow-up near-peer mentoring to interested high school students, this project aims to (1) build awareness and value among Hispanic parents and youth in targeted under-resourced Hispanic communities of careers in health research; (2) engender an interest to pursue health research careers among youth in these same communities; and (3) trigger pursuing a college path in health research among high school students in these same communities. In order to achieve these aims, the project will: (1.1) Recruit nine Hispanic role model scientists yearly to provide talks to parents and youth. (1.2) Coach these scientists to offer exhilarating, engaging, and informative talks. (1.3) Offer monthly talks each school year during Program Years 1-4. (1.4) Attract at least 400 Hispanic church goers to attend at least one talk and at least 300 Hispanic church goers to attend two or more talks during all program years. (1.5) Feature videos of these same talks on the project website. Further objectives will be to: (2.1) Promote youth churchgoers’ identification with the role models featured in the talks. (2.2) Build assurance among youth that they can pursue health research science careers. Objectives under aim 3 will be to: (3.1) Recruit and train up to 40 near-peer mentors on how to offer college prep coaching, including both male and female young Latino health/biological science professionals who have completed their college degrees. (Project Years 1-4). (3.2) Recruit up to 160 Latino high school students who have attended at least one role model talk to participate in college prep coaching (Project Years 1- 4). (3.3) Offer at least one year, and up to two years, of college prep coaching to each mentee (Project Years 1-5) and supervise mentor/mentee relationships. Year 5 of the project will entail dissemination of project results among a network of pastors representing 150,000 Hispanic churches. Project evaluation will be conducted by the independent evaluator, Knology. 1