This week on Arizona Illustrated… meet a few of the over 675 residents at the Ironwood Pig Sanctuary; the Tucson Repair Cafe helps keep your electronics running and out of the landfill, and how one organization is addressing gaps in mental health services in rural Arizona.
Ironwood Pig Sanctuary
Mary Schanz and her team care for 680 pigs in Marana, making Ironwood on of the largest pot-bellied pig sanctuaries in the country. The rescue pigs come from different backgrounds and conditions, and include special needs pigs, injured pigs and frat boys.
Tucson Repair Cafe
Planned obsolescence has caused everyday items to be built to maximize profits and not for durability and longevity, exacerbating global waste generation and harming the environment. The Tucson Repair Café aims to change this on a local level by breathing new life into items. They host free events the second Saturday of every month at Xerocraft, where the community can bring a broken item in, whether it’s a toaster, clothes, or coffee maker, to get it repaired. Volunteer repairers work on the item with the guests right next to them and teach attendees how to do the repairs themselves. The Tucson Repair Café aims to create a more circular economy by reducing landfill waste through repair and teaching people valuable DIY skills to create a stronger, more environmentally friendly community.
Proyecto Juntos – Addressing Mental Health Gaps in Rural Arizona
In the southeastern counties of Arizona, people face unique socioeconomic and infrastructural barriers to accessing adequate mental healthcare. For SEAHEC, the Southeast Arizona Health Education Center, addressing these barriers has been the core of their mission since 1985. These barriers require strategies that SEAHEC seeks to design and implement through community research, where the people who live in these areas have a say in what services and infrastructure they really need. Now with the investment of a six-million-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, multiple health coalitions from four counties will partner together to find sustainable and long-term solutions.
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