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NEWS | Jan. 5, 2017

Army Reserve partnership to help poor near Mexican border

By Gary Sheftick

WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- The Army Reserve is broadening its private-public partnerships by forming more relationships with universities, including a new one with Texas A&M that aims to help economically-distressed areas near the Texas and Mexican border.

Called "colonias," these Texas communities sometimes lack basic infrastructure and amenities such as potable water, sewer systems, electricity, paved roads and affordable health care. Under the new partnership, Army Reserve Soldiers will train in 2017 on mission essential tasks in these communities, while also helping their low-income residents.

"Our Soldiers get to do real-world training and give back to the community," explained Alberto Rivera, strategic subject-matter expert for the Private-Public Partnerships Office.

The move is part of the Department of Defense's Innovative Readiness Training: civil-military partnerships that address the needs of communities while meeting the readiness requirements of active, Guard and Reserve units.

MEDICAL OUTREACH

In June, Army Reserve medical personnel will begin offering family health care, immunizations, dental exams and eye exams to local residents at four community centers in and around Laredo, Texas. An active-duty detachment will craft eyeglasses for colonia residents after Army Reserve optometrists and technicians conduct the eye exams.

Army Reserve medical personnel will be assisted by nurse practitioner students from the Texas A&M Nursing Department in Corpus Christi. Physician interns from the university's medical school may also volunteer to join the project, said Oscar Munoz, colonias coordinator for Texas A&M. He's been working projects in the colonias for 17 years now.

This will be the first time the university will team with the Army Reserve. The Army Reserve will be able to offer medical care on a much larger scale, Munoz said.

In 2017, the Army Reserve Southeast Medical Area Readiness Support Group will head up the medical outreach in Laredo and also plans to provide preventive med classes to about 8,800 patients.

Lt. Col. Joel Guinyard, training officer for the Army Reserve Medical Command, met with government officials in the Laredo area and performed recon of the facilities where the Reserve medical professionals will work.

Guinyard called the colonia residents he saw in Laredo "just regular working folks that have not been dealt a good hand as far as health care."

"We have a myriad of support that is available," he said. "The dental aspect is going to be a big pull. ... From the smiles that I saw … the dental aspect is going to be a key part."

CIVIL AFFAIRS ASSESSMENT

At the same time as the medical outreach, the 478th Civil Affairs Battalion will conduct an area assessment of four colonia neighborhoods. They will be assisted by community health workers who will team up with Soldiers to administer surveys.

The civil affairs teams will draw on their Spanish-language skills to conduct the surveys, Rivera said. Texas A&M students will then crunch the data before it's turned over to the Economic Development Division of Webb County to help generate grants for the county's 62 colonias.

"There's going to be a sharing and a learning process going in each direction," Munoz said. "It's also going to give Webb County a very current database for them to write grants."

ENGINEER TRAINING

In one of colonias communities, about 13 miles south of Laredo, the 277th Engineer Company will pave a mile of rural roadway in La Presa, Texas, during their annual training in June. The engineers from Camp Bullis, Texas, will also regrade five acres surrounding a colonia's community sports center.

"Soldiers feel good about working in a U.S. community and giving back," Rivera said. "They're so used to going overseas and now we can help in our own backyard."

"I think it's a good recruitment tool also," he added.

FUTURE PROJECTS

It's the goal of Private-Public Partnership office to eventually provide outreach across the entire Texas-Mexican border, followed by Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California. More than 2,330 colonias exist across the entire U.S. border with Mexico, according to Munoz.

U.S. Army North has been meeting with county commissioners and municipal officials to coordinate projects requested for next year and beyond. El Paso, Laredo and the lower Rio Grande Valley, Texas communities have applied for projects in fiscal year 2018. Rivera said the help is much-needed.

"They are extremely excited," he said of the community officials. "It's a good match for the Army Reserve."

The Army Reserve also is looking to duplicate the colonias agreement with schools in Arizona, New Mexico and other border states.

"We're working to do additional agreements like the one we have with Texas A&M and the colonias," explained Erin Thede, director of the Army Reserve's P3 office. "There's true mutual benefit going back and forth" in all of the partnerships.

OTHER PARTNERSHIPS WITH ACADEMIA

"We have agreements with thousands of employers around the country," said Maj. Gen. Michael R. Smith, deputy chief of the Army Reserve.

Recently, the Army Reserve has been broadening its partnerships beyond the business sector into the academic and nonprofit sectors, according to Smith.

"The solutions are not military or business or academia alone," he said. "It's all three of those groups coming together, working toward a common solution for the benefit of the nation. You'll see more of that to come. It's really the way of the future."

"A lot of the schools have come on board as of late," Thede said. Along with Texas A&M, the University of Phoenix and the University of New Mexico are now partnering with the Army Reserve.

The Army Reserve began partnering with universities on cyber about two years ago, she said. Schools that now partner with the Army Reserve for cyber and offer scholarships include:

-- Norwich University.
-- University of Washington.
-- University of Texas at San Antonio.
-- George Mason University.
-- University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and Microsoft have partnerships with the Army Reserve. The Army Reserve is looking to partner with Harvard University and conduct research projects with the Lincoln Labs at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Thede said.

"We have the medical guys, we have the engineers … we have the logisticians," in the Army Reserve, Thede said. These skills translate well to the private sector, she explained.

Many Army Reserve Soldiers work for academic institutions, she said. About 100 academic institutions are working partnerships with the Army Reserve.

NOT-FOR-PROFITS

Not-for-profit agencies are also one of the fastest growing partnerships.

"What's really coming in is our relationships with the not-for-profits," Thede said. When active-duty Soldiers struggle with financial matters or emotional issues "there's a building, nine times out of 10, on that installation where they can go to get assistance with those issues."

Army Reserve Soldiers don't have that luxury.

"We do a lot of mentor protégé-type of partnerships through organizations such as American Corporate Partners," Thede said. The Mission Continues is another partner.

Red, White and Blue is a community fitness program that allows Soldiers to come together and engage in activities like mountain climbing, 5-kilometer races and biking.

Through a partnership with Give-an-Hour, Soldiers have received about $1.4 million in free counseling, according to Thede. It's an hour of counseling with a medical professional and potential follow-on appointments are possible.

"We're doing a lot in the area of emotional health," she said. "Unfortunately, we hear way too much about suicide."

The big indicators for the risk of suicide are unemployment, financial problems and relationships. P3 works with all three of those, Thede said, calling it a "trifecta."

"I tell people I'm the one person you're going to meet that likes 'good-idea fairies' because we can turn those good ideas into programs that really benefit our Soldiers," she said.

Thede described all of the partnerships as mutually beneficial.

"At the end of the day, both sides are achieving objectives," she said.