FOCUS AREAS
Telling the beautiful stories of our communities is at the heart of what we do, and we have engaged in projects highlighting the history of communities and neighborhoods treasured by the Latine community in Minnesota, such as Lake Street, and uplifted the experiences and challenges of Latine artists in Minnesota through focus groups and in-depth interviews.
We continually engage Latines in Minnesota in the topics and activities that have implications for policies that impact our livelihood, including Census outreach, voter engagement, public safety, democracy and redistricting, parks and recreation, and leadership opportunities for both adults and youth.
Our heavy involvement in Minnesota’s COVID-19 has facilitated the distribution of over 3,000 doses of vaccines in the arms of Minnesotans. Through partnerships with local, county, and state government, as well as local community organizations, we reached Latines in all parts of the state through engaging social media content, Facebook Live, presentations form experts, and in person outreach. In addition, we have facilitated community conversations at different points throughout the pandemic to highlight community needs and concerns regarding COVID-19 spread and infection, testing, vaccination, and impacts of COVID-19 on daily life, mental health, and more.
Many Latines have an entrepreneurial spirit; we work towards increasing opportunities for Latines with business ideas and business goals to through our outreach, Creando Ando workshops, Latinx Summit, and more. We’ve also used research and evaluation to learn more about the needs of our communities in these areas, by conducting needs assessments and evaluation other organizations’ business and leadership programs.
We strive to elevate the experiences and stories of our youth so that their voices are heard and are part of conversations around important issues. This includes understanding substance use among youth, as well as developing engaging leadership development programs for Latine teens, pregnant teens, and young adult parents; developing evaluation plans for youth-focused programs in the community; and partnering with the Mexican Consulate on educational initiatives.
We recognizes the different impacts climate change has on various communities, including the Latine community. We’ve engaged the Latine community through focus groups, interviews, and surveys, as well as educational and hands–on workshops with youth to get community perspectives on climate change and how we can all work together to mitigate its effects.
Nutrition, physical activity, the impact of music on mental health, food shopping habits, and cervical cancer are some of the topics we have worked to address using various strategies, including focus groups, interviews, food shopping tracking, and surveys.