February 21, 2023
Maya McCann Joins Central West Justice Center to Lead Medical-Legal Partnership Assisting Farmworkers
BY (413) 686-9054 / cquintero@cwjustice.org
Central West Justice Center, a subsidiary of Community Legal Aid, is pleased to announce that Maya McCann has joined the organization to establish the state’s first Medical-Legal Partnership to provide holistic care and advocacy to farmworkers living and working in Massachusetts.
A 2022 graduate of Northeastern University School of Law, McCann is a 2022 recipient of an Equal Justice Works Fellowship, one of the most prestigious and competitive post-graduate legal fellowships in the country. The Fellowship pairs aspiring public interest lawyers with financial sponsors and legal services organizations so that the lawyers can work on a two-year project of their own design. McCann’s Fellowship is sponsored by Fidelity Investments and Mintz.
McCann’s project will establish a farmworker Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) in conjunction with the Connecticut River Valley Farmworker Health Program. In addition to providing advice and consultation on-site during weekly office hours at the farmworker medical clinic, McCann will provide more extended assistance in housing, benefits, and employment law matters. She will also engage with farmworkers and other organizations to conduct outreach and training on the rights of and resources available to farmworkers. As part of her fellowship, Maya will work closely with the Central West Justice Center’s Migrant & Seasonal Farmworker Project’s Staff Attorney, Claudia Quintero.
Said McCann, “Every day, thousands of farmworkers in Western Massachusetts work long hours at low pay to put food on our tables. In addition to enduring extremely hazardous labor, farmworkers are particularly vulnerable to negative social determinants of health. Consequently, farmworkers are twice as likely to live in severe poverty and often struggle with housing instability, poor living conditions, food insecurity, and other challenges. This project utilizes a Medical-Legal Partnership to address farmworkers’ unmet legal needs and work with clinic staff to improve the health and wellbeing of farmworkers and their communities.”
About the Central West Justice Center (CWJC):
CWJC is a non-profit organization that provides legal services to low-income people in Central and Western Massachusetts. CWJC’s Migrant and Seasonal Farmworker Project is the only statewide project that provides advocacy to farmworkers across the Commonwealth on a wide range of legal matters relating to humanitarian-based immigration law, housing and homelessness, labor and employment, and access to public benefits.
For more information about CWJC and the Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Project, please visit www.cwjustice.org.