Nicole Mendez- Assisting Marginalized Communities

Entertainment, News — By Buddy Sampson on May 21, 2024 at 5:37 am

By Buddy Sampson

Underserved communities, such as communities of color, have often had health disparities versus more affluent communities in approaches to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and accessibility to kidney transplants.

In order to address these disparities, Nicole Mendez, the Executive Director of the Mendez National Institute of Transplantation Foundation (MNITF), is actively involved in meeting the needs of communities of color through the establishment of programs and films. Her goal is to raise awareness of the resources available to underserved communities and show them how to defeat kidney disease and kidney failure.

Producer of the soon-to-be-released movie “The Christmas Chain,” which follows two Army brothers named Dez and Jerome as they return home following Jerome’s catastrophic kidney ailment, the movie brings awareness to the serious plight of kidney issues for people of color. “The cast and crew that have been involved in this project have been wonderful,” said Nicole Mendez, creator and producer, of working with Suzanne DeLaurentiis Productions for this exciting endeavor.

The philanthropist and former Marriage and Family Therapist expressed her joy in producing such an important project. “It has a beautiful story, it’s around Christmas time and I’m a sucker for Christmas movies,” she laughed. “So, when Suzanne (DeLaurentiis) said, let’s do something with Christmas, I thought, ‘oh my Gosh, this is amazing to do this, especially a story about giving the gift of life at Christmas.’” Written by Tricia Aurand, Suzanne DeLaurentiis and directed by Dale Fabrigar, this heartwarming tale has a message not only for Black, Hispanic and Latino communities, but for all communities.

Her father, Rafael Mendez and uncle (twin brother) Robert Mendez, founded the Mendez National Institute of Transplantation Foundation (MNITF) in 1984, and were pioneers of kidney transplantation, which was formed to provide and do research for advanced transplantation. “When I got involved, beginning in 1994, I was also getting my license for marriage family therapy,” she said. “I was hired part time to do fundraising, but I realized I had many clients that had kidney disease on dialysis and wanting a transplant, and I also realized that there were psychosocial needs that were not being met, especially in educating patients in the transplant process and successfully living with the transplant.”

She started providing educational materials to patients about kidney disease with the realization that more needed to be done, especially in servicing communities of color.  She created the Community & Patient Education Department and the One-on-One Kidney Transplant Program. But she needed a more accessible way to get information to the public, especially to communities of color.

“There are more novel ways of presenting information to the general public,” she said, which were the beginnings of concepting film series’ about kidney disease. She found that kidney disease has far reaching effects, beyond the individual that has kidney disease. “Not only does it affect them, but it affects the family members and often they don’t know how to be effective caregivers, so both the series’ (she created) also addresses the family members.”

Originally from Los Angeles, from the San Fernando Valley, Nicole Mendez now resides in Nashville, Tennessee. ”I’m an Encino girl,” the University of Southern California graduate laughed.  However, living in Los Angeles opened her eyes to the plight facing the minority population. In 2012, she produced “Fixing Paco,” a 9-episode telenovela-style digital series in English and Spanish, featuring comedy legend Paul Rodriguez, that focused on kidney transplantation. “One of the things of living in Los Angeles and having dialysis centers where 50% of the population is Hispanic, many could not read, or speak English, so we had to find novel ways to provide this information. We really focused on targeting communities that are not getting that information. And a lot of my focus has been prevention of kidney disease. So many people don’t realize how at risk they are if they have diabetes or hypertension and how it can be prevented. We wanted to use entertainment to provide all this information.”

Later, she created and produced “Linked by Love,” a series under MNITF’s edutainment series, to address decreasing kidney disease disparities, designed to improve kidney health and access to transplantation for African Americans. “The disparities are so high, especially with the Black community with kidney disease and kidney failure and not getting enough access to transplantation or living donations, I really felt that I should provide information that can help in a relatable way,” she explained. “With ‘Linked by Love,’ we really took the time and effort to kind of look at ‘what are the barriers for this community?’ We really took a look at that. We did a research study with Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science to find out what are these barriers and what are the facilitators in helping people to gain access? So, I incorporated that into the script of ‘Linked By Love’.”

Nicole Mendez hopes her films bring awareness to the general public and to underserved communities of the importance of kidney health, prevention and transplantation opportunities. “What I hope from ‘The Christmas Chain’ is that it plants the seed,” she explained. “And people say, ‘I need to take better care of my health.’ Or, wait, I can be a living donor for somebody that I love that needs a transplant.”

To find out more about “The Christmas Chain,” due for release soon, visit https://www.mnitf.org.

“Fixing Paco,” about kidney disease in the Hispanic and Latino communities can be viewed at https://www.mnitf.org/about-fixing-paco. For Spanish speakers: www.componiendoapaco.org.

“Linked By Love,” which focuses on the plight of kidney disease in Black families can be viewed by visiting https://www.mnitf.org/linked-by-love, or www.linkedbylovetv.org.

The Mendez National Institute of Transplantation Foundation (MNITF) is a public nonprofit dedicated to the mission of advancing the science and practice of organ transplantation and end-stage organ disease therapies through research, education and innovation.

For more information, and on how you can help, visit https://www.mnitf.org.