UMMA Community Clinic is proud to announce that we will be opening a school-based clinic in April of 2012. Our new clinic, situated on The John C. Fremont High School campus, is a milestone in UMMA’s history of continuing service to the South Los Angeles community.

The Fremont Clinic and wellness center, includes a community garden being developed by the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust. UMMA will work together with the Land Trust to promote healthy living for the students and help address the area’s health disparities.

Fremont High is one of the most at-risk schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District. The vast majority of its students live in low-income households, with more than 60 percent of the community’s residents living well below the poverty level. Among the student body of 4,600 pupils, 1 in 3 students is obese; 1 in 30 will develop Type 2 diabetes before graduation, and nearly 1 in 7 girls will contract a sexually transmitted disease before the age of 20.

To help combat these crippling statistics, UMMA’s new clinic will provide a broad range of primary and preventive health care services, including men’s and women’s health services; voluntary family planning services (excluding abortion); prenatal care and on-site dispensing of pharmaceuticals. In addition, UMMA will partner with SHIELDS for Families to provide mental health care and substance abuse services. Services will be available to all community members as well as to the Fremont High School students and staff members.

LAUSD and the County of Los Angeles are funding construction of our approximately 2,500 square-foot, school-based clinic facility and of the 1.5-acre community garden and farming site. L.A. Care Health Plan, the nation’s largest public health plan, and The California Endowment have both provided early support toward project implementation.

This combined effort will revitalize an area that has been underutilized for many years. UMMA is excited to partner with such worthwhile organizations and is looking forward to significantly impacting the lives of those who deserve a healthy environment.