Working and singing for women’s health Joan Yonkler: An evening with old friends,
March 30, 2007

Joan Yonkler: An Evening with Old Friends
Fri, Mar 30, 8pm
El Market Bistro
Hernández Macías 95
50-peso donation
152-3229

HIV/AIDS prevention in Malawi. Adolescent Reproductive Health in Bangladesh. Family Planning in Ghana. Polio eradication in Nigeria. These are some of the mass media campaigns and issues that Joan Yonkler has been helping to develop in countries around the world. As a consultant to Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, a part of the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, Joan has traveled great distances to work with advertising agencies, health ministries and non-governmental organizations to develop public health programs that enable audiences to adopt healthy behaviors. Most of the funding has come from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as from host countries. 

A former advertising agency executive, Joan worked in agencies both in New York and in Washington, DC. She even ran her own agency, Golden Yonkler, for six years, before joining the JHU team in 1995. Her communication skills enabled her to help public health officials learn how to apply advertising and marketing tactics to public health issues and make them appealing, relevant and actionable.

Joan, a half-year resident in San Miguel for the last five years, is taking on a new challenge: to help raise money for CASA, the local organization that provides health services and counseling to both women and adolescents here in San Miguel. To raise these funds, Joan performs a one-night cabaret entitled, “Joan Yonkler: An Evening with Old Friends,” to be held at El Market Bistro. The cabaret is a dedicated to her family, who constantly exposed her to music of their generation(s), while she was growing up in New York.

Accompanied by Elena Shoemaker, music selections include jazz standards plus bossa nova, Mexican ballads and contemporary music. Joan sings a few duets with special guest Louis Hirsch, who sings several solos, as well.

Your host Daniel Sirdey offers one cocktail gratis and botanas pre-dinner. Come and see the changes that Daniel has made in his beautiful patio. 

The 50-peso suggested donation will go to CASA. CASA is a non-profit organization that has been serving the poor, particularly adolescents and rural women, through health, social service, and environmental outreach programs since 1981. CASA continues to provide its signature service: teams of adolescent peer counselors, who provide environmental, sexual, and civil-rights education, as well as free family planning consultations and methods. CASA also offers a community center for local youth; a maternity hospital and family health clinic offering free HIV testing, Pap smears, birth control, professional midwives, pre- and post-natal care, and numerous other services; a midwife program that includes Mexico’s first and only government-accredited school of midwifery; a child development center and daycare for infants and children up to 6 years old, and many more services and resources. Please contact CASA or view their website: www.casa.org.mx  for more information.

The show begins promptly at 8. Groups of all sizes can be accommodated. Please make your reservations directly with El Market Bistro. Phone: 152 3229. 

Come and enjoy the terrific music.