ADOLESCENT GIRLS OF COLOR MULTI-YEAR GRANT PROGRAM
NewMexicoWomen.Org prioritizes adolescent girls of color (AGOC) as a focused grant portfolio. The AGOC portfolio supports New Mexico non-profit organizations rooted in social justice and committed to building leadership pathways for and supporting the well-being of adolescent girls and gender-expansive youth of color.
It is important to provide resources focused on adolescent girls and gender-expansive youth of color, as this population in NM has the least power and bears the largest brunt of historic and present-day injustice. Girls of color are often at the bottom of most social hierarchies, yet we know they are deeply powerful, resilient, and brilliant. When their rights are fully realized, adolescent girls of color have the skills required to positively impact both their own lives and entire communities, transforming structures of poverty and inequity in ways that benefit everyone.
The AGOC grant cycle is not currently accepting applications. Sign up for our newsletter here for updates about funding opportunities through this program.
2024 SPRING AGOC PARTNERS
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (CSVANW)
Communities served: Bernalillo, Sandoval, Cibola, Valencia, Santa Fe, McKinley, San Juan, Taos, Rio Arriba, Otero, Lincoln Counties; All NM tribes, nations, and pueblos. Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women has a mission is to stop violence against Native women and children by advocating for social change in our communities. Their project serves Indigenous girls, young women, and their families who are experiencing the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). CSVANW develops practices that strengthen, grow power and leadership for women and girls, and they achieve this through the cultivation of community leadership, and by honoring the sacred stories and experiences of survivors. This project will uplift the stories of the women and girls who have been ignored and forgotten by media, law enforcement and the non-Indigenous communities of our region. These stories will defy the disparate treatment of our women and girls by the media, community and law enforcement.
Littleglobe, Inc.
Communities served: Northern Santa Fe County, Rio Arriba County, Nambe Pueblo, Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara Pueblo, San Ildefonso Pueblo, Pojoaque Pueblo. Littleglobe is a New Mexico-based non-profit that consists of artists and facilitators committed to the practice of socially engaged, participatory art that galvanizes individual and collective voices, activates empathy, and leads to personal and community agency..
Littleglobe is co-creating program spaces for AGOC to be creative and express themselves through the tools and art of digital storytelling. With AGOC leadership, the digital storytelling program provides them more agency to share their perspectives and stories in spaces of power within their home community. Littleglobe brings their expertise in storytelling, media production, and creative engagement to the group of young women while providing opportunities for them to learn and develop both technical and social/emotional skills.
New Mexico Black Leadership Council
Communities served: Bernalillo County. The New Mexico Black Leadership Council (NMBLC) serves as a hub to create a viable and sustainable social profit sector designed to serve the Black communities in the state of New Mexico. The NMBLC hosts the Roots Conservatory (RC) program that consists of a Roots Summer Leadership Academy (RSLA) and Roots Explorers Program (R.E.P.). The RC program provides year-round programming using arts and asset-based models of engagement to focus on building resilience, leadership, and self-esteem for youth of color ages 8-16 in Albuquerque’s International District. Each program includes a community-led Caregiver Council where caregivers and parents receive training, education, and referrals for youth support.
UNM Community Engagement Center – Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute
Communities served: Bernalillo, Sandoval, and Valencia Counties. The UNM Community Engagement Center convenes the Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute (AYLI), a collective of youth-serving organizations to build anti-racist organizing skills with young people while fostering wellness, networking, and relationship-building between multiple generations of anti-racist organizers in Albuquerque. AYLI uses an intersectional approach to leadership development and social transformation. Their curriculum and programming accounts for the compounding effects of multiple identities, including gender, race, class, and sexual orientation. While the majority of AYLI’s participants self-identify as young women of color, they serve youth across the gender spectrum and believe it is essential to work with a diverse group of young people to build relationships across differences and develop a stronger coalition.
Girls Inc. of Santa Fe
Communities served: Santa Fe County. Girls Inc. of Santa Fe inspires all girls to be strong, smart, and bold, through direct service and advocacy. Girls Inc.’s Leadership Out Loud program at Capital High School works to teach girls to use their voices to advocate for themselves on issues that are important to them. Many teens seek a platform from which to be heard and need resources to help them make that happen. This program supports girls to assess critical problems affecting their lives and find solutions; collaborate with peers and adults to reach those solutions; and to develop the skills and knowledge they need to become change agents. They have groups of girls in each grade at the high school to develop and implement their advocacy projects throughout the school year.
Indigenous Lifeways
Communities served: McKinley County, Navajo Nation and Zuni reservations. Indigenous Lifeways mission is to restore the health and balance for all people and our environment by utilizing traditional knowledge and wisdom, respectful land-based practices, ceremonies, and a deep understanding of the dynamics and peoples of our communities. Indigenous Lifeways is currently providing access to multimedia education and media career pathways by organizing comprehensive career fairs and after-school programming that is specifically tailored for Indigenous people’s representation within the media, and to introduce culturally sensitive and appropriate media teachings to ensure authenticity, while maintaining the dignity of sharing experiences as Indigenous people. They are also implementing mentorship programs designed to foster personal growth and leadership skills, and amplifying the voices of Indigenous youth and gender-expansive youth of color through media advocacy initiatives and community and civic engagement projects.
National Indian Youth Leadership Project (NIYLP)
Communities served: McKinley and Bernalillo Counties; Navajo, Zuni, and other Pueblos. National Indian Youth Leadership Project’s flagship program, Project Venture, is a culturally responsive, experiential outdoor adventure program geared to Indigenous youth grades 6 to 12. Project Venture utilizes a positive youth development approach that capitalizes on strengths rather than deficits. Project Venture has three components: experiential outdoor adventure activities; service learning; and peer mentoring/leadership. Experiential learning engages participants in outdoor adventure activities that develop critical thinking skills alongside physical abilities. Service learning engages youth in their communities, with a focus on activities to help address climate change. High school students train as peer mentors to support after-school and weekend activities. They are incorporating two new components into Project Venture – Indigenous gardening activities and mindfulness techniques. Both components were developed in response to the negative impact of COVID-19 on the health and well-being of Indigenous youth.
Vital Spaces
Communities Served: Santa Fe, Taos, Los Alamos, and Bernalillo Counties. Vital Spaces focuses on centering and amplifying Black voices in Northern New Mexico as well as collaborating with Indigenous artists, artists of color and the city’s artist community as a whole. Vital Spaces hosts a “Sista Circle” summer camp to provide a safe space for Black and mixed girls in Santa Fe County to build self-esteem, community, and cultivate inclusivity throughout a two-week long summer session. Sista Circle invites young girls to explore and express their Blackness with a group of women who shared their unique lived experience through critical conversations, creative expression, and mentorship.
2023 Fall AGOC PARTNERS
Casa de Salud
Communities Served Bernalillo, Sandoval, and Valencia Counties. Casa de Salud (Casa) is a unique, non-profit health center in the Albuquerque South Valley that responds to critical needs for affordable primary care, addictions care, and LGBTQ and transgender care services for patients from low-wealth communities of the South Valley, International District and central NM. The Casa Health Apprentice Program is a successful, 10-year-old workforce development pathway in NM for primarily young women of color, typically from low and moderate income and immigrant families, who aspire to healthcare professions. The program provides hands on medical training and professional development. Apprentices shadow and train with Senior Apprentices and staff in a supportive learning environment, until they are able to perform clinic duties. Within a year, the Health Apprentices have potential to be promoted to Senior Health Apprentices. In this position they are given further training, more responsibility, and the additional role of training new Health Apprentices. This program serves adolescent girls of color by supporting their leadership advancement within the clinic, which further reinforces their sense of belonging and elevates their self-esteem, while creating a safe and supportive working environment that models what gender equity looks like on an organizational level.
Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County
Communities Served: the Colonias and smaller urban cities in Doña Ana County; specifically La Union, Chamberino, San Miguel, Vado/Del Cerro, City of Anthony, City of Sunland Park. The Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County (EC) is a community engagement initiative that works with low-income, marginalized rural colonia and urban communities. EC endeavors to support community leaders exercising their agency and taking ownership of their neighborhoods, communities and within institutions and governmental bodies. Funding supports a 4-part educational workshop series called Descoloniz-ARTE, with the purpose to empower youth through discussions about identity, history, and membership. A majority of young women of color are taken through a leadership curriculum and then called on to actively participate in the design and painting of a community mural. Descoloniz-ARTE is intended to serve as a vehicle to empower young people of color to support them as they step into their agency and power while making a contribution to community or school. There is a collaborative effort between local youth, local artists and a community organization to collectively design and create a large-scale, community mural. The project’s goal is to ground young people in their identities by fostering their community awareness, pride, agency, and other markers of a healthy self-awareness and self-esteem.
New Mexico Dream Team
Communities served: Bernalillo, Doña Ana, and Santa Fe Counties. New Mexico Dream Team is a statewide network committed to creating power for multigenerational, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and mixed-status families toward liberation. Through trainings and leadership development, they work to engage community members and allies in becoming leaders using an intersectional, gender, and racial justice lens in order to develop and implement an organizing and advocacy infrastructure for policy change and dismantle systematic oppression. Their UndocuHealing program connects youth to healing practices, outdoor recreation, and environmental stewardship. The program is designed to build trust and create solutions that meet the needs of its members. The program seeks to dismantle systemic oppression while promoting the healing and wellness of its members and communities.
Pueblo Action Alliance
Communities served: All 19 Statewide Pueblos. Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA) is a community-driven grassroots organization that protects Pueblo cultural sustainability and community defense by addressing environmental and social impacts in Indigenous communities. PAA offers youth programming that includes but is not limited to, spaces that seek to connect through a fellowship, art builds, workshops, and school visits. Their Cultivating Roots and Resistance Fellowship is open to all Pueblo Youth ages 18-15. In addition, to their fellowship PAA has built partnerships with local organizations and schools such as the Native American Community Academy. Among opportunities at PAA are the opportunity to learn how to facilitate a land and body mapping workshop, and craft events that honor the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 from a youth lens.
Earth Care NM
Communities served: Santa Fe County. Earth Care works to advance environmental, economic, social, and climate justice by training and supporting youth and families of color to lead community-based advocacy campaigns that aim to improve the health, wealth, and sustainability of their communities while building civic infrastructure, social capital, and institutional power. YUCCA and RISE Youth are programs led by self-identifying young women and gender-expansive youth of color in middle school and high school, who organize their peers, families, and communities in campaigns to advance climate justice and community health. Their campaign work is currently focused on transition energy policy as well as community development efforts including housing justice, food access, mutual aid, and teen center oversight, as identified by the young leaders of YUCCA and RISE.
La Semilla Food Center
Communities Served: Doña Ana County, specifically the Paso del Norte region including Colonias communities. La Semilla Food Center’s mission is to foster a healthy, self-reliant, sustainable and localized food system in the Paso del Norte region of southern New Mexico. You Grow Chica! is summer day camp where adolescent girls of color learn from inspiring local women and discover that cultivating a relationship with healthy food and traditional food practices can lead to careers in science, history, health, nutrition, culinary arts, and agriculture. The program addresses gender justice and healing through the medium of food and food systems and engages adolescent girls from predominantly Latinx communities, including colonia communities, in food justice, personal, community, and environmental health, farm-based agroecological and ancestral foodways, and microenterprise development programming. Programming is rooted in and elevates the Mesoamerican cultural heritage and ancestral roots in the area, and grounds healing in their desert lands, foods, and medicines. Girls in the program evolve their perception of their choices and opportunities and begin to create their paths toward self-sufficient, healthy, and empowered lives.
New Mexico Comunidades en Acción y de Fe
Communities served: Doña Ana and Luna Counties. New Mexico Comunidades en Acción y de Fe (CAFe) is a network of diverse religious institutions and community broad-based organizations across Southern NM committed to building relational power with and for New Mexicans who have been directly impacted by systems of injustice. They are working towards building an inclusive economy that centers working people and families and treats them with dignity. CAFe launched Youth Rising in 2023, a youth organizing cohort with members from southern New Mexico working to develop the capacity of young people to engage in the civic process and influence policy via leadership trainings, retreats, and mentorship. They explore healing through community-building, and from hosting community listening sessions, have identified that mental health and immigration rights are key concerns of youth.
Northern Youth Project
Communities served: Los Alamos County, Santa Fe and Rio Arriba Counties. Northern Youth Project (NYP) founded in 2009, works to provide healthy and meaningful learning opportunities for rural northern New Mexico youth through hands-on art, agriculture, community service, and leadership projects that continue culture and create the future. This year they will work with young people in their gardening and FLOW (Future Leaders of Our World) programming, in which adults and youth of all genders work together during program activities. Interns are supported to learn and demonstrate skills for their younger and less experienced peers. This year’s programming will involve use of the NM Healthy Masculinities Toolkit and additional healthy relationship training resources. NYP intends to partner with local organizations for their masculine identified interns while their staff provides training for self-identified girls. Their goal is to create opportunities for youth to develop language and skills that reinforce gender equity, respectful relationship dynamics, and set a foundation for a fair distribution of labor during future internship programming.
The Counseling Center
Communities Served Lincoln and Otero Counties, and Mescalero Apache Reservation. The Counseling Center The Counseling Center (TCC) provides an array of quality behavioral, social, and supportive services to families and youth in need of assistance dealing with life challenges. TCC intends to provide Suicide Prevention, Bullying/ Social Media Bullying, and Overdose Prevention events for youth, as their community has experienced a devastating uptick in youth loss from overdose and suicide. Additionally, TCC will hold celebrations for young girls to foster empowerment and creative expression through poetry, essays, and other art forms.