BREATHE LA Protects the Breath of Life : promoting clean air and healthy lungs through research, education and technology.

Healthy Start

East Valley Healthy Start Consortium is designed to serve children, youth, their family members, and the community to ensure that each child receives the physical, emotional, and intellectual support that he or she needs - in school, at home, and in the community - to learn well, and build the capacity of students and parents to be participants, leaders, and decision-makers in their communities.
Testimonial: 

Heavy industrial activity in Los Angeles, especially in the San Fernando Valley and East Lost Angeles, spews a multitude of contaminants into the air each day. Unfortunately, this highly polluted air finds its way into air passages, especially into the lungs of the most vulnerable populations.  The rate of asthma among school children in the San Fernando Valley and East Los Angeles is particularly high.

Breathe LA addresses this issue with its Healthy Start partner at Vinedale Elementary School in Sun Valley to help parents and children identify asthma indicators and to educate those afflicted about treatment and management. East Valley Healthy Start Consortium is designed to serve children, youth, their family members, and the community to ensure that each child receives the physical, emotional, and intellectual support that he or she needs - in school, at home, and in the community - to learn well, and build the capacity of students and parents to be participants, leaders, and decision-makers in their communities.

“Breathe LA’s program interested me because I wanted children to benefit, as well as their families,” says East Valley Healthy Start Consortium Coordinator Geneva Ruiz-Hyatt. “Many times people don’t understand what asthma is, how you get it and how it affects every day life.”

Breathe LA experts teach children how to manage their condition with a simple R-E-S-T procedure, which is: R-Recognize Warning Signs, E-Express to an adult, S-Stay Calm, T-Take medications. 

“I like to see students walk away with knowledge that they can lead a fairly normal life and learn to control symptoms,” Geneva adds. “I like to see them empowered.”