This summer, we were honored to support organizations around New Mexico providing creative and transformative programs for self-identifying girls and young women of color. NewMexicoWomen.Org is committed to investing in the creativity, leadership, and well-being of adolescent girls of color because we know the future depends on it. In New Mexico, which ranks 49th in the country for childhood well-being, girls of color face profound systemic barriers. Investing in programs that build their power and support their leadership is essential.
Summer and after-school programs have long provided enriching experiences for young people. However, access to such opportunities has been, and continues to be limited and shaped by class, race, and gender. Further, the curricula and format of such programs has rarely centered the wisdom, knowledge, leadership, and joy of women and girls of color. We are honored to support groups like the You Grow Chica! summer camp in Anthony, the Roots Summer Leadership Academy in Albuquerque, the inaugural Sista Circle Summer Program in Santa Fe, Feminist Youth Workshops with youth statewide, and the Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute in Albuquerque. These programs provide opportunities for young women and girls of color; from learning ancestral knowledge about agriculture and farming techniques, to honoring their bodies and what it means to come of age, as well as building resilience, leadership, and self-esteem, and much more.
When girls are at the center, their rights realized, and their voices heard, they transform society in ways that benefit everyone. They are at the heart of gender justice. We are honored to partner with organizations and programs around New Mexico that are working toward a future where girls, young women, and their communities can heal and thrive.
PARTNER UPDATES: SUMMER PROGRAMS SERVING GIRLS & YOUNG WOMEN OF COLOR AROUND NEW MEXICO
La Semilla Food Center’s You Grow Chica! Summer Program
La Semilla Food Center held its annual You Grow Chica! summer camp from June 28th – July 2nd in Anthony, New Mexico. Led by their Community Education Program, the camp plants seeds for food justice in their region in southern New Mexico.
Acknowledging that women are the knowledge bearers and leaders, they start at the root. Girls (4th-8th grade) learn about the important roles women have played in nourishing and healing our communities through food and agriculture. La Semilla planned for virtual sessions and on-site programming at their farm. While all sessions went virtual, due to weather, staff adapted to create meaningful connections. Guided by inspiring local women who are change-makers in the community, activities included: movement and meditation, native plants, herbal remedies including medicinal honey, soil health and planting, civic engagement and representation, and cooking lessons for squash blossom quesadillas and watermelon nieve de garrafa(Mexican sorbet). A free camp, all campers received container garden kits and recipe ingredients.
To learn more and donate to La Semilla Food Center’s work, visit their website
New Mexico Black Leadership Council’s Roots Summer Leadership Academy
“Nishati” is Swahili for energy. At this year’s 2021 Roots Summer Leadership Academy (RSLA) instructors created a Covid-19 safe, out of school enrichment experience for young people ages 8-16 in Albuquerque. The program, centered around the theme Nishati, was a fun-filled and engaging program of S.T.E.A.M. (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) learning featuring a STEM, art, music, and dance curriculum and social emotional learning. RSLA students learned to be connective, grounded, and transformative in engaging with their school and life relationships. Read a blog post about the RSLA here.
The Roots Summer Leadership Academy is held by New Mexico Black Leadership Council, a Black women-led organization. Through theRoots Conservatory, which consists of the Roots Summer Leadership Academy and Roots Explorers Program, they provide year-round programming using arts and asset-based models of engagement to focus on building resilience, leadership, and self-esteem primarily for adolescent Black girls.
The RSLA staff and instructors (above in photo) shared this about the success of the program: “Girls at the camp were celebrated and valued. Young women who came in unsure of their role in the community quickly became involved in community building and leadership roles.”
To learn more and donate to New Mexico Black Leadership Council, visit their website
Earthseed Black Arts Alliance’s Sista Circle Summer Program
The Sista Circle Summer Program 2021, brought 20 Black girls and women, from in and around Santa Fe, together for two weeks of programming centered on the joy of Black girlhood, community, and culture.
Over the course of ten days, the girls learned how to build personal altars as a way to find calm within themselves and connect to the natural world. They also made waist beads to honor their femininity, explored story and healing through dance, made clay vessels to express their transition into adulthood, took to the Rio Grande for a full-day of rafting, trust-building, and play, and explored the poems of Nayyirah Waheed, while learning to write their own poetry and prose. The girls who attended the program were from Capital High School, Santa Fe High School, New Mexico School for the Arts, Mandela Magnet School, and Monte Del Sol. The time they shared together was empowering and positively life-affirming!
To learn more and donate to Earthseed Black Arts Alliance, visit their website
SouthWest Organizing Project’s Con Mujeres Gender Justice Feminist Youth Workshops
Starting in January of 2021, SouthWest Organizing Project’s (SWOP) Con Mujeres Gender Justice has hosted an ongoing monthly series of Feminist Youth Workshops on Zoom. The youth comprise two cohorts, one of older high school students, whose workshops are delivered in English, and another of middle school youth, given in Spanish.
Touching on every topic in the Feminist wheelhouse, this year-long effort has had a three-part mission: to cultivate new feminist leaders; to engage other like-minded organizations in New Mexico and build relationships; and to pilot the topics, leaders, and resources for an eventual outdoor immersive weeklong Leadership Camp. Led by SWOP’s Feminist Youth Organizer, Yahaira Carreras, these young leaders have discussed such subjects as bodily autonomy and reproductive justice; feminist economics; the history of Feminisms, racism, and anti-blackness; education as power, and more. Alma Torres, a partera (midwife) from Casa Fortaleza who they met through their pandemic mask project, has worked to ensure developmental and cultural appropriateness, in addition to helping with interpreting presentations and documents. The youth all had a chance to meet in person for the first time at a field trip to Cliff’s Amusement Park.
To learn more and donate to SouthWest Organizing Project, visit their website
The Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute’s Summer Cohort
The Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute (AYLI) is for youth who are part of a collective of local youth serving organizations in Albuquerque. The collective co-constructs the curriculum with youth for a year long program to organize with an anti-racist and gender justice intersectional lens.
This summer, Aldo was a youth participant in the AYLI cohort. As AYLI wrapped up their programming for the fourth summer in a row, they saw the impact the program had on the youth in very distinct ways. Aldo shared that, “AYLI has been impactful for me as I have grown my lens and understanding of race and racism. AYLI has been different for me because I had never been part of an Institute that delved into the topic of race and racism in the community and how racism is affecting us all, through an intersectional lens. The most impactful part is to learn that young people can be part of change and transformation in our communities.”
Aldo’s reflection captures the layers of impact, as youth come together in virtual community, share stories, learn about organizing in Albuquerque and develop skills and knowledge for greater agency. In these trying times, the healing comes from organizing together in a compassionate yet strategic way.
To find out more about AYLI, contact the UNM Community Engagement Center
NMW.O is able to make these investments with generous support from our partners at NoVo Foundation, and our donors like you. Thank you for your generosity and commitment to the health and wellbeing of self-identified women and girls in our state. You can continue this support and help us deepen this healing work by making a donation here.