Poco a poco. For Linda Brady, this Spanish phrase meaning “little by little” aptly sums up her ongoing work with Ecuadorian immigrants in Minneapolis to improve community health. But the phrase captures neither the novelty of the grassroots project nor the extraordinary passion Brady brings to it. How else to explain a health improvement project that finds Brady, a professor of food science and nutrition, teaching English to Ecuadorians four nights a week at a northeast Minneapolis church?

“I could have just come into the community and said, ‘I’m doing a project to address diabetes and other health issues in the Ecuadorian immigrant community, meet me after church,’ but I doubt anyone would have come,” says Brady. Instead, casting aside academic hypothesis-proving for old-fashioned relationship building, Brady stepped into the ebb and flow of community life to learn how she could help address health issues from the ground up and as a real partner.

“It’s ‘community-based health promotion’—a new model of how academic researchers can work with communities,” explains Brady. “You don’t start with ‘this is what you need’ or ‘this is what I need from you.’ You say, ‘What do you need? How can I help you? How can we work together to improve the well-being of your community?’”

Best known for two decades of laboratory research on diabetes and probiotics, Brady began her current work two years ago, inspired by a public health physician she met on a trip to Ecuador with the U’s Global Campus program, She’s spent the last two years simply getting to know hundreds of Ecuadorians of all ages at Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, a Catholic congregation just 14 blocks north of the University. The church has become a gathering place for some of the estimated 15,000 Ecuadorians in the Twin Cities—many of them indigenous Amerindian families seeking a better life than was possible in their impoverished South American homeland.

Traveling from campus to St. Cyril’s nearly every weeknight to teach English is one way Brady has found to gain the community’s trust. It’s a way, she says, for her to “work hand in hand with community folks to improve basic literacy—not just English literacy, but also cultural literacy, practical literacy, health literacy.”  Among Ecuadorians, the classes have made Brady a trusted help meet, known for her willingness to track down answers to questions and point people toward helpful resources. The classes themselves have become de facto workshops for acculturation and capacity-building, covering issues from how to rent an apartment to how to start a business.

The classes also establish a foundation for initiatives focused on health issues. Diabetes is one particularly pressing problem among Ecuadorians, and Brady is working with a group of St. Cyril’s members ton develop educational materials geared to the literacy levels and cultural needs of Ecuadorian immigrants.  Brady, who has shared crosscultural experiences and training with professionals at Hennepin County Medical Center and several community clinics, also has launched an ambitious project to train Ecuadorians themselves to be health promoters within communities. Already, she and graduate student Bibiana Garzon have designed and piloted a comprehensive 20-week program (reaching is done both by the two of them and by professionals representing many community agencies) covering everything from first aid to food safety, allergies to mammograms, nutrition to HIV.

“Our goal is to empower the community to learn, organize, find resources, and develop the capacity to improve community health,” says Garzon. “It’s a challenge to work with an immigrant community. The more we know about what Ecuadorians are like and what they need, the more successful we’ll be.”

“I see this project as the perfect example of the College of Human Ecology in action,” says Brady, who takes what she learns back to the University classroom for courses such as Latino Health and Culture. “People sometimes are surprised to hear that I’m not just going in and teaching nutrition. But this is what human ecology means—we take in the person’s entire environment. It takes time. Actually, this project dominates my life. But if I had to give up something, it wouldn’t be this. It’s deeply gratifying work.”