Grantee Partners
Multi-Media Adolescent Girls of Color Research Project Awardees
Indigenous Lifeways (McKinley County, Navajo Nation and Zuni reservations)
Indigenous Lifeways mission is to restore health and balance for all people and for our environment by utilizing traditional knowledge and wisdom, respect-filled land-based practices, ceremonies, and a deep understanding of the dynamics and peoples of our communities. Indigenous Lifeways currently supports a youth development project that aims to increase knowledge of environmental and health and social justice among indigenous girls and two-spirit people. They train and provide funding for 4 Social Justice Fellows to engage in a Literacy Sphere Curriculum, and to share information about environmental protection, uranium contamination and other social justice issues within their local chapters across the Navajo Nation. In order to document this work, and teach additional skills of filmmaking and podcast development to the Social Justice Fellows and other indigenous girls and two spirit community members, Indigenous Lifeways will use funding to conduct a series of quarterly trainings. Indigenous Lifeways will provide mentorship as the Social Justice Fellows develop 6 podcast episodes and 4 documentary shorts to highlight their environmental and social justice work across the Navajo Nation. Surveys will be administered to listeners and viewers of the podcasts and docu-series to evaluate impact.
Littleglobe, Inc. (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 which 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. In collaboration with Tewa Women United’s A’Gin Youth Council and Tewa Roots Society’s Teen Coalition/Teen Council from Nambe Pueblo Littleglobe will use this funding to implement a storytelling and film-making research project. This youth-led program will allow the participants in both organizations the opportunity to learn media literacy, storytelling, media production and post-production in order to communicate stories about issues that affect themselves and their communities. Littleglobe will bring our expertise in storytelling, media production, and creative engagement to the group of young Native women while providing opportunities for them to learn and develop both technical and social/emotional skills.
Gender Equity Emergency Fund Grantee Partners
El Valle Women’s Collaborative
The Gynecological Awareness Project
La Plaza de Encuentro Gathering Place
New Mexico Asian Family Center
New Mexico Women’s Reentry Center
Recovery Friendly Workplaces of NM
Southwest Creations Collaborative
Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico
2019 – 2022 Adolescent Girls of Color Grantee Partners
Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute (AYLI) 2019-2022 (Bernalillo, Sandoval, and Valencia Counties) The Anti-Racist Youth Leadership Institute convenes 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 in order to build relationships across differences, and develop a stronger coalition.
Black Health New Mexico 2021-2022 (Bernalillo, Rio Arriba, and Santa Fe Counties)
The work of Black Health New Mexico (BHNM) is focused on a community-centered model that encourages community-defined interventions to public health problems, specifically health outcomes that disproportionately impact Black infants, mothers and families. Their mission is to provide community education and coalition building that increases community participation- and leadership- in health policy and programing. BHNM believes that interventions that seek to improve health outcomes, must be deeply rooted in and influenced by the expertise, leadership and lived experience of the communities most impacted. BHNM co-leads the Black and Indigenous Maternal Health Policy Organization and uplifts young Black women in their work through earned-credit or paid internships, centering their voices in the work, training them how to think more broadly about health disparities by centering the lived experiences of community members, engaging young people with their elder constituency and grounding them in a framework of care and healing.
Casa de Salud 2019-2022 (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.
Earthseed Black Arts Alliance 2021-2022 (Santa Fe County)
Earthseed Black Arts Alliance 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. Earthseed held a “Sista Circle” summer camp in 2021 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 participants to explore and express their Blackness with a group of women who share their unique lived experience through critical conversations, creative expression, and mentorship.
Empowerment Congress of Doña Ana County 2019-2022 (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 will support 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 will be taken through a few weeks of leadership curriculum and then will be 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. This will lead to 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.
Indigenous Women Rising 2021-2022 (Statewide)
Indigenous Women Rising (IWR) is committed to honoring Native & Indigenous People’s inherent right to equitable and culturally safe health options through accessible health education, resources and advocacy. IWR partners with high school interns to develop skills around event planning and execution, data processing, and fundraising through storytelling. They also do media training with these young people to support them in telling their own stories. IWR is also intentional about incorporating the experiences and feedback of trans and non-binary community members in their work to provide accessible and safe reproductive and health education, resources and advocacy to Native and Indigenous Peoples.
La Semilla Food Center 2019-2022 (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.
Mother Tongue Project 2019-2022 (Santa Fe County)
Mother Tongue Project (MTP) creates relevant, relationship-based, academic literacy programming for young mothers, whose education carries multi-generational benefits for adolescent girls of color and their families. MTP combines academic study, independent reading and mentorships to build literacy skills, investing at a critical point in young women facing persistent race and gender inequities and barriers to success. The juncture of parenthood and high school is a critical influence point for promoting the power of literacy in healing and achievement; encouraging students to tell their own stories; raising awareness; and building young women’s competence and confidence to engage in education, community and advocacy. The name of the program reflects the commitment to teen mothers’ voices. A young mom learning to read widely, think deeply and write and speak with purpose pushes beyond narratives of victimhood and stories others tell about her. By finding power in her voice, she claims more agency in her life.
New Mexico Black Central Organizing Committee 2021-2022 (Bernalillo County)
The New Mexico Black Central Organizing Committee (NMBCOC) is a strategy and policy lab centering the lived experience of Black New Mexicans through building community power, advocacy, education and outreach. Our work is built on joyful collaboration, coalition, and community building. The Committee began as a group of mostly Black women, Black youth and people of color who organized to encourage and support passage of ordinances and laws that would ban hair discrimination in New Mexico. These laws center the experience of Black women and girls and target the discrimination they face in schools, employment, public accommodations, and other spaces based on their hair texture and/or protective hair styles. The anti-hair discrimination laws passed in New Mexico in March 2021. NMBOCC plans to educate leadership in schools about New Mexico’s anti-hair discrimination laws; uplift adolescent girls of color by holding events that celebrate their experiences and identities; and hold listening sessions in central, southern, and northern New Mexico with Black adolescent girls to learn about their experiences to issue a report on the status of Black women and girls in New Mexico.
New Mexico Black Leadership Council 2021-2022 (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 has a Roots Conservatory (RC) program that consists of a Roots Summer Leadership Academy (RSLA) and Roots Explorers Program (R.E.P.). RC provides year-round programming using arts and asset-based models of engagement to focus on building resilience, leadership, and self-esteem to 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.
NM Office of African American Affairs 2021-2022 (NMOAAA) (Bernalillo County)
Since 2016 the New Mexico Office of African American Affairs has curated and hosted the Inner Beauty…Total Me Summit for middle school girls of color. This gathering provides an entire day of interactive and informative trainings and workshops for young black and brown women, by black and brown women. The Summit is made up of several educational and empowering workshops, designed for young female students of color who identify as African American women, that provide a space to embrace themselves, achieve greater inner strength, healing (generational and self-healing), and support one another along their journey. The Inner Beauty Summit has grown from one summit to two summits a year to accommodate the interest in the Albuquerque Public Schools district wide. The goal of the Inner Beauty Summit is to equip young women with tools for better self-care, self-awareness, and self-advocacy, and provides young black and brown women tools to navigate their current lives and be agents of change in their family and community.
The Counseling Center 2019-2022 (Lincoln and Otero Counties, specifically the Mescalero Apache Reservation)
The Counseling Center provides an array of quality behavioral, social and supportive services to families and youth in need of assistance dealing with life challenges. The Center will provide three, eight-week Girls Circle groups aimed to counteract social and interpersonal forces that impede girls’ growth and development by promoting an emotional safe setting and structure within which Mescalero Apache girls can develop caring relationships and use authentic voices. The Girls Circle groups will culminate into an Empowerment Fair, that will be planned by the participants, that includes an awards luncheon with a successful woman of color guest speaker to celebrate and encourage the girls. Supportive community partners who are committing to working towards positive changes for these girls are invited to attend. Funding will also provide scholarship funds for three women of color to become trained as certified Girls Circle facilitators with the goal to sustain the Girls Circles program on the Mescalero Apache reservation.
2017 – 2021 Gender Justice and Healing Grantee Partners
Breath of My Heart Birthplace (Rio Arriba and Santa Fe Counties)
Breath of My Heart Birthplace (BMH) is a community midwifery clinic located in Española that works to improve access to quality prenatal care, and improve maternal and infant health outcomes in the rural communities of northern New Mexico, by serving families through a high-quality, culturally-appropriate midwifery model of care. BMH offers a no-cost walk-in prenatal clinic designed to make midwifery accessible for pregnant people and families in the Valley. Their programming focuses on serving those most impacted by health disparities and barriers to healthcare access, with special attention on the needs of young parents, Native Americans, immigrants, LGBTQ, and low-income families.
Changing Woman Initiative (Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Sandoval, Rio Arriba, Taos and San Miguel Counties and Nambé, Ohkay Owingeh, Picuris, Pojoaque, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Taos, and Tesuque Pueblos)
Changing Woman Initiative (CWI) is a Native American-centered women’s health collective, with a mission to renew indigenous birth knowledge and healing through the development of a culturally centered reproductive wellness and Native American birth center, the first in the U.S. As a developing non-profit, their vision is to renew cultural birth knowledge to empower and reclaim indigenous sovereignty of women’s medicine and life way teachings to promote reproductive wellness and healing through holistic approaches and to strengthen women’s spiritual, physical, and emotional wellness. By creating a physical space for education and healing for Native American women, CWI seeks to reclaim the cultural identities shaped through one’s culture, from birth, through motherhood, and through all the life cycles.
Encuentro (Bernalillo County)
Encuentro’s mission is to transform New Mexico into a thriving community for all residents by engaging with Latino immigrant families in educational opportunities that build skills for economic and social justice. The Trabajadoras del Hogar program seeks to address the challenges of high job turnover, low wages, few to no benefits, and extremely limited training faced by workers, while also building capacity and strengthening NM’s workforce in one of its leading growth industries. Home health workers are the second fastest growing occupation in NM, yet training is extremely limited, especially for lower-income Spanish-speaking women who represent many in the home healthcare field.
Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute (Santa Clara Pueblo)
Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute is based in Santa Clara Pueblo, which is a Tewa speaking sovereign tribe. The organization works to weave together the people, place, and spiritual life of the community by re-introducing and teaching old sustainable lifeways. Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute is currently working on a project called the Kwi-tewha (“Woman’s Ceremonial House” in the Tewa language). Having a place to learn how to prepare this food and gather as women is an important piece in the healing journey. Old traditional ways need to be woven together to become a healthy community, and women’s ceremonies will ground and bring order to our spiritual lifeways. Passing on this traditional knowledge is a spiritual rite of passage for Tewa women, and the Kwi-tewha is central to this endeavor.
Healing Circle Drop In Center (San Juan and McKinley Counties)
Located in Shiprock, the mission of the Healing Circle is to meet in “Circle” as Sisters/Women to support one another and celebrate unique gifts, talents, and experiences. To mentor Sisters means to walk the path of self-sufficiency, self-awareness, and self-leadership for a positive community and a better future. The Center offers support groups and workshops, such as AA, Natives in Sobriety, Sisters In Circle support groups, skill building workshops, and traditional teachings from the Navajo Wellness Model. The Sisters In Circle are an intricate part of programs and host events for the community Sisters, such as an Annual Celebration of Women, the Sisters Retreat, as well as planning and strategizing sessions and support groups. Currently, the Sisters are researching how to start a co-op for the many Sisters who sit by the highways trying to sell their arts and crafts items to support themselves and families.
New Mexico Asian Family Center (Bernalillo and Sandoval Counties)
New Mexico Asian Family Center (NMAFC) was founded in 2006 and remains the only agency in the state providing culturally tailored services and programs to support a Pan-Asian community that advocates for and supports itself. NMAFC began primarily as a direct service agency led by Asian immigrant women to support local Pan-Asian women and families experiencing domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes. Since 2010, the agency has expanded to include multigenerational family programming, including Tea Talks, a men’s led initiative addressing male entitlement, patriarchy, and gender equity in an effort to build a network of strong male allies in the movement to end violence against women. Tea Talks is evolving to include voices of women and LGTBQ voices from the Asian community.
Northern New Mexico College Office of Equity and Diversity (Rio Arriba, Santa Fe, Taos, and Los Alamos Counties)
The Northern New Mexico College Office of Equity & Diversity addresses access and provides opportunities for any group that has been historically disadvantaged or underrepresented in higher education. We are currently planning and developing a Women’s Council for Northern New Mexico to include a shared reading experience, a 2-day retreat for creating a feminist, decolonial creative praxis-oriented council, and the creation of mini-grants for women leaders who attend the retreat to put their ideas into action through the support of a funded project. The NNMC Office of Equity & Diversity’s project will actively engage women in thinking about feminist community-based leadership and how their own healing connects to maintaining healthy communities.
Southern New Mexico Wellness Alliance (Otero and Lincoln Counties)
The 2017 Otero and Lincoln Counties’ Sexual Assault and Nurse Examiner (SANE) goal is to provide outreach and improved services to the rural communities served by their program. The geographical area covered by Southern New Mexico Wellness Alliance’s SANE program is substantially large, encompassing nearly 12,000 square miles. As a part of this goal, the Alliance provides services to underrepresented communities with low income populations such as Capitan and Carrizozo and will provide outreach to communities with extreme gender inequities, such as Chaparral, and communities populated by mostly minorities such as Hondo and Tularosa. Within these communities, the Alliance presents at schools and other public forums and provide information about sexual assault, gender difference, sexual safety, body issues, safe dating practices, and gender roles. In addition, the Alliance initiates support groups for sexual assault survivors within the counties and communities served.
SouthWest Organizing Project (Bernalillo County and Statewide)
SouthWest Organizing Project’s (SWOP) NM Con Mujeres is an intergenerational gender justice platform using education and organizing to involve local communities in collective healing. This is a multi-issue, multi-constituency platform that channels a traditional vision of interconnectedness, and which sees issues of economics, safety, health, education, and environmental life as integrated and of equal importance. Con Mujeres has an advanced network of allied individuals and groups and promotes leadership and campaign development through their membership committee. SWOP’s work is anchored in a gender justice foundation based in the lived experiences of New Mexico’s women, and the group connects that foundation to the work of allies in social movements.
Tewa Women United (Six Tewa Speaking Pueblos in Rio Arriba and Northern Santa Fe Counties)
Tewa Women United (TWU) is an inter-tribal, multi-cultural, multi-racial, intergenerational collective of women who reside in the Tewa Pueblo homelands of northern New Mexico. Every day Native women and girls are centered in TWU’s work to challenge domination and oppression, addressing the root causes of violence, health, and social justice disparities. TWU’s work is to end all forms of domination and exploitation, which is rooted to violence against women and girls and our Mother Earth. Activities will achieve their goal of increasing gender equity and healing through cultural connectedness among Native girls and boys and benefit them by providing leadership opportunities and experiences that deepen their cultural identity and sense of place and belonging.
Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (Statewide)
Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico is the only agency in the state that exists to provide services and advocacy for, and education for and about, the transgender people of New Mexico, along with their families and loved ones. TRCNM has been engaged in education work since 2008 and has provided more than 750 Transgender 101 trainings all over NM to a wide array of audiences, including QSA/GSA clubs, hospital staff, churches, synagogues, therapists, teachers, classrooms, attorneys, and police officers.
Tri County Family Justice Center (San Miguel, Mora and Guadalupe Counties)
Since 2006, Tri-County Family Justice Center (TCFJC) has served domestic violence survivors of San Miguel, Mora, and Guadalupe counties, utilizing resources available to advocate and provide direct service for those affected. Thanks to creative leadership and effective services, TCFJC has worked diligently within the community to help in the fight against injustices towards women and girls of color affected by domestic violence. TCFJC aims to provide support for women by utilizing collaboration and a coordinated community response towards ending violence. The organization’s vision is to empower victims and survivors in the rural communities served and provide accessible resources to women to begin the healing process.
Youth Research and Resources Center (Doña Ana County)
The State of New Mexico continues to experience significant issues with the high levels of trauma sustained by its female juvenile justice population. Girls in Doña Ana County are negatively impacted by poverty, gang involvement, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, lack of education, and sex trafficking. With few programs being available to provide necessary services to girls in the justice system, Youth Research and Resources Center aims to craft a local juvenile justice system that proves itself responsive to girls’ needs, increase gender-responsive programming for girls, and create a coordinated effort among agencies that currently provide therapeutic and prevention services exclusively to girls.
2018 Healing and Self-Care Awardee Partners
Barrios Unidos (Rio Arriba County)
Barrios Unidos is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and intercultural community investigating cultural and psychological issues related to addiction and cultural trauma in Rio Arriba County. The organization brings together experts and mavericks from the sciences, the humanities, and the healing arts to explore the root causes of these crises, and to envision pathways of transformation. Barrios Unidos exists as a transparent chrysalis for intentional living. Barrios Unidos believes it vital to start transforming our community by first transforming ourselves and our ideas.
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women (Statewide)
The CSVANW takes ownership and responsibility for the future of Native women and children by providing support, education, and advocacy using our strengths, power and unity to create Violence-free communities. Focused on investing in and empowering our leaders of tomorrow, CSVANW works to inspire and support the next generation of New Mexico’s tribal leaders in the fight to eliminate violence against Native women and children. CSVANW does outreach and education in our tribal communities to address the issues that our youth face today, such as domestic violence in the home, cyber-bullying, teen dating violence, internet safety, missing and murdered indigenous women, land-body resiliency, and bystander violence. Our young leaders will be inspired and equipped to return to their communities, support and empower their peers, and make healthy valued based choices using smart strategies.
El Valle Women’s Collaborative (San Miguel County)
El Valle is a women led council honoring ancestral wisdom of the land and healing historical trauma through listening, building and maintaining relationships. In this journey we are on together we acknowledge healing others comes while we heal ourselves. Like the biodiversity in our valley, we value our diversity in age, socioeconomic status, spirituality, ethnicity and sexual orientation and life experiences. We openly and authentically recognize that our trauma is experienced differently and collectively. Our work together is rooted in a healing justice framework. We build resiliency in our community through investing in our local people to become yerberos (herbalists) and parteras (midwifes) so that we have the freedom to access health outside of the medical industrial complex, respecting our land and water while inspiring others to do the same, partnering with young people to grow foods that nourish them and their families while at the same time creating opportunities for economic self-sufficiency.
Encuentro (Bernalillo County)
Encuentro’s mission is to transform New Mexico into a thriving community for all residents by engaging with Latino immigrant families in educational opportunities that build skills for economic and social justice. Since its inception in 2010, Encuentro’s focus has been to provide the Latino immigrant community with top quality adult education programs in a welcoming and culturally accessible environment. We know that strengthening skills in the areas of English language and literacy, High School Equivalency, and Technology are essential to the successful integration and economic success of immigrants; however, without a longer term plan for connecting new knowledge and skills to viable income-generating opportunities immigrants can struggle to advance.
Healing Circle Drop In Center (San Juan/McKinley Counties)
Located in Shiprock, the mission of the Healing Circle is to meet in “Circle” as Sisters/Women to support one another and celebrate unique gifts, talents, and experiences. To mentor Sisters means to walk the path of self-sufficiency, self-awareness, and self-leadership for a positive community and a better future. The Center offers support groups and workshops, such as AA, Natives in Sobriety, Sisters In Circle support groups, skill building workshops, and traditional teachings from the Navajo Wellness Model. The Sisters In Circle are an intricate part of programs and host events for the community Sisters, such as an Annual Celebration of Women, the Sisters Retreat, as well as planning and strategizing sessions and support groups. Currently, the Sisters are researching how to start a co-op for the many Sisters who sit by the highways trying to sell their arts and crafts items to support themselves and families.
Kalpulli Izkalli (Bernalillo County)
Kalpulli Izkalli is led by women and families dedicated to healing our community and environment through the promotion, preservation and protection of cultural and traditional practices which include agriculture, medicine, and ceremony, as well as individual creativity to enhance personal, family, community and general human development. We are located in the South Valley, an unincorporated area of Bernalillo county, that has a disproportionate burden of many factors influencing our environment and health outcomes. As a medically underserved area, it experiences the corresponding psychological stress and increased vulnerability from chronic deprivation along with the adverse effects of racism, discrimination, and disenfranchisement resulting from the historical impact of colonization. Kalpulli Izkalli’s program work is moved forward through the implementation of projects in the Major Program Areas to meet the needs of the community; Health and Healing, Environmental Health and Justice, Youth/Building the Next Generation Leadership, and Economic Self-Sufficiency.
La Piñon Sexual Assault Recovery Services of Southern New Mexico (Doña Ana County)
La Piñon works to provide comprehensive services related to sexual violence and child abuse to individuals, families and the community. La Piñon believes that by offering unconditional support, information and a safe environment for change, the person who has been sexually assaulted can take steps to regain control of their life and make the transition from victim to survivor.
OLÉ Education Fund (Bernalillo Sandoval, Valencia Counties)
OLÉ is a non-profit, who uses grassroots organizing within the local community of working families in New Mexico. Our members and staff work together to strengthen our communities through social advocacy and economic reform, using issue-based campaigns and electoral engagement to ensure that working families are playing a critical role in shaping New Mexico’s future with a united voice. OLÉ’s focus areas include workers’ rights, early childhood education, citizenship and ESL assistance, and Healthy Workforce ABQ, a ballot initiative that will guarantee earned sick days for every worker in Albuquerque.
Somos Un Pueblo Unido (Statewide)
Somos believes that every person should have the freedom to move in order to pursue a better life and works to build a community that does not discriminate against people based on their national origin, that institutes humane migration policies, and that protects the human rights of everyone irrespective of where they are born or what documents they carry. Founded in 1995, Somos is a statewide community-based and immigrant-led organization that promotes worker and racial justice. With an active membership of 2,500 people in ten counties, Somos: Offers community education about rights and remedies, Forges leadership opportunities for immigrants and low-wage workers; Provides legal services to wage theft victims and initiates impact litigation to defend worker’s rights; Engages Latinos in the political and electoral process; Leads and supports grassroots campaigns for local and national policies that strengthen our communities.
Tri-County Family Justice Center (San Miguel/Mora/Guadalupe Counties)
Since 2006, Tri-County Family Justice Center (TCFJC) has served domestic violence survivors of San Miguel, Mora, and Guadalupe counties, utilizing resources available to advocate and provide direct service for those affected. Thanks to creative leadership and effective services, TCFJC has worked diligently within the community to help in the fight against injustices towards women and girls of color affected by domestic violence. TCFJC aims to provide support for women by utilizing collaboration and a coordinated community response towards ending violence. The organization’s vision is to empower victims and survivors in the rural communities served and provide accessible resources to women to begin the healing process.
2012 – 2016 Women’s Economic Security Grantee Partners
Based on the findings from NewMexicoWomen.Org’s (NMW.O) Indicators Report, the 2012 – 2016 grant cycles focused on women’s economic self-sufficiency. NMW.O is aware that the cycle of poverty underpins many other pressing issues faced by women in New Mexico. To that end, grants were made to organizations and programs in New Mexico that were working effectively to address the root causes of economic insecurity, and were providing the tools and resources to increase women and girls’ self-sufficiency. Throughout the 2012 – 2016 period, the following organizations received grants:
Accion (Statewide)
Accion has financed the start-up or growth of more than 23,000 new businesses in rural and urban communities of New Mexico. Through the NMW.O grant, Accion extended their organizational support of economic security and self-sufficiency through trainings of women entrepreneurs in Gallup, Carlsbad, and surrounding areas.
Adelante – Mujeres de Adelante (Santa Fe County)
The Mujeres de Adelante Women’s Cooperative creates tangible economic opportunities for single mothers who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. In addition to creating economic opportunity, they provide English and GED classes, as well as business and skills development trainings. These facets of the program together build the confidence and abilities of economically vulnerable women to become financially
independent.
Brave Girls at the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School (Native Communities Statewide)
The goal of Brave Girls is to educate, empower, and work on positive youth development in order to empower and prevent at-risk activities, inspire expanding self-knowledge and a positive self-identity, and develop critical thinking, initiative, responsibility, self-respect, and healthy lifestyles. The girls are provided with tools to make positive decisions, avoid risky adolescent behaviors, and promote overall well-being as it relates to girls’ development including physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being, and other issues affecting them.
Colonias Development Council (Doña Ana County)
The Colonias Development Council provides integrated services for immigrant families through providing women with skills for community organizing, leadership development, and advocacy within the colonia communities of southern New Mexico.
Enlace Comunitario (Bernalillo, Valencia, and Sandoval Counties)
Enlace Comunitario is a community based organization that provides direct services to Spanish-speaking victims of domestic violence and advocates for the rights of Latino immigrants and their children. The Economic Self-Sufficiency Project works to build the safety and economic self-sufficiency of Spanish-speaking domestic violence survivors. Direct services to be offered through the program include safety planning, case management, and referrals to community resources, transitional housing, and assistance with Individual Development Accounts. The program increases financial literacy skills for EC staff members and provide clients in the transitional housing program with modest start up housing kits to increase their success and self-sufficiency.
Girls Inc. of Santa Fe (Santa Fe County)
Through experience, Girls Inc. helps girls gain knowledge to embrace control of their own health security through physical activity, positive body image, and nutrition while decreasing or delaying substance use and risky sexual behavior. The girls in the program increase their love of learning, improve performance in school, and aspire to and plan for education beyond high school, which improves their chance of obtaining economic self-sufficiency.
Literacy Volunteers of Santa Fe (Santa Fe County)
The Women’s Citizenship Literacy Project at Literacy Volunteers of Santa Fe equips women with the skills they need to strengthen the greater community with improved literacy levels, employability, and increased civic participation.
Masada House (San Juan County)
Masada House, Inc. is a Transitional Living Program that works to address the problems of economic insecurity, domestic violence, poverty, and poor health in women due to addiction and to interrupt these cycles in order to improve the lives of women and their children. Masada House assists homeless women recovering from substance abuse by providing a safe, stable living situation with set rules, boundaries, levels of achievement, encouragement, and support from both peers and staff.
Native American Voters Alliance (Native Communities Statewide)
Native American Voters Alliance (NAVA) is committed to social, economic, and environmental justice principles that advance healthy and sustainable communities for Native families living in New Mexico. The formation of a Native American Community Action Group serves as a key stakeholder in the creation of a “Working Families Community Agenda” thereby setting progressive policy goals.
OLÉ Education Fund (Bernalillo, Valencia, Torrance, and Sandoval Counties)
OLÉ Education Fund, who uses grassroots organizing within the local community of working families, organizes members who are fighting for economic justice for families, particularly those headed by single women. They place a primary focus on the intersection of Early Childhood Education and Fair Work Week legislation, as well as leadership development, to strengthen economic stability for women.
Oso Vista Ranch (Ramah Navajo Community)
Located in Pine Hill, Oso Vista Ranch Project provides culturally based entrepreneurship, financial literacy, youth leadership, and commercial tobacco use prevention programs for New Mexico Native American communities. The Blue Corn Path to Empowerment provides mentorship of women and girls by teaching them how to grow, harvest, and process blue corn. Efforts include education on how a diet rich in traditional Native food combats the incidence of diabetes.
Southwest Creations Collaborative (Bernalillo, Valencia, and Sandoval Counties)
Using a women-focused, multi-generational approach, Southwest Creations Collaborative’s (SCC) Employability and Educational Equity programs address the multiple barriers that low-income women and girls experience in becoming economically self-sufficient. SCC’s programs focus on employment, family engagement, college readiness, early childhood development, employability, and leadership, as well as training and technical assistance for schools and community organizations.
Southwest Women’s Law Center (Statewide)
Southwest Women’s Law Center (SWLC) advances economic security for women through education and outreach to women, businesses, and human resource professionals about the Fair Pay for Women Act. SWLC also continues to gather data and information that will culminate in refining the model legislation on Pregnancy Fairness and Accommodations in the Workplace.
SPIRIT of Hidalgo (Hidalgo County)
Located in Lordsburg, SPIRIT of Hidalgo’s Hidalgo Women’s Cooperative continues the development of an infrastructure to support the ability of women and girls to earn an income, primary or supplemental, while caring for their families. The primary activities are the continued development of a community kitchen and café, marketing opportunities, a network of professional help, and increased resources for support. SPIRIT of Hidalgo develops the capacity of women and girls who have been developing or are interested in starting their own businesses. They utilize evidence-based strategies such as the online entrepreneurial programs, Individual Development Accounts, professional mentors, and community partnerships to build personal and community power for women and girls interested in becoming entrepreneurs.
Tres Manos Weaving of New Mexico (Doña Ana County)
Located in Mesilla, Tres Manos provided free weaving, business, and life-skills training, including financial literacy and asset-building, to low income women in southern Doña Ana County. They built a successful weaving, professional sewing, and garment finishing business by and for low income women in southern Doña Ana County.
Women’s Intercultural Center (Doña Ana County)
Located in Anthony, WINGS is a signature program of the Women’s Intercultural Center, which consists of a three pronged programming approach: Alternative Education & Personal Development, Economic Self-Sufficiency, and Consciousness-Raising for Change. Each approach reinforces and complements the other to educate, empower, and engage women.
2013 – 2016 Chispa Awards with New Mexico Community Foundation
Chispa, which means “spark” in Spanish, is an award that is given annually by New Mexico Community Foundation in collaboration with NewMexicoWomen.Org to nonprofits that shine a light in the communities they serve. Chispa awards are unrestricted grants to use for an organization’s general operations. Nominations are made by statewide community partners, and final decisions are made by a volunteer selection committee. The Chispas are a surprise award and none of the recipients know their organization has been selected until the day they are presented with the award and grant. Half the organizations selected to receive Chispa awards specifically work on issues facing women and girls, aligning with NewMexicoWomen.Org’s mission. In the 2013 –2016 period, organizations were chosen who work with women and girls in low income and rural communities and communities of color on reproductive health and justice, leadership and education for young women, gender based violence, and economic security. Throughout the 2013 – 2016 period awards were made to the following organizations:
Adelante – Mujeres de Adelante Women’s Cooperative (Santa Fe County)
Mujeres de Adelante Women’s Cooperative empowers mothers of homeless Santa Fean families by providing space, materials, and crafts training, as well as marketing and business development skills from which to generate income. The (larger) Adelante Program offers emergency and ongoing services that relate directly and indirectly to homeless living situations and assist in children’s academic success.
Brave Girls at the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School (Tribal Communities Statewide)
The goal of Brave Girls is to educate, empower, and work on positive youth development in order to empower and prevent at-risk activities, inspire expanding self-knowledge and a positive self-identity, and develop critical thinking, initiative, responsibility, self-respect, and healthy lifestyles. The girls are provided with tools to make positive decisions, avoid risky adolescent behaviors, and promote overall well-being as it relates to girls’ development including physical, emotional, mental, and social well-being, and other issues affecting them.
Breath of My Heart Birthplace (Rio Arriba and Santa Fe Counties)
Breath of My Heart Birthplace (BMH) is a community midwifery clinic located in Española that works to improve access to quality prenatal care, and improve maternal and infant health outcomes in the rural communities of northern New Mexico, by serving families through a high-quality, culturally-appropriate midwifery model of care. BMH offers a no-cost walk-in prenatal clinic designed to make midwifery accessible for pregnant people and families in the Valley. Their programming focuses on serving those most impacted by health disparities and barriers to healthcare access, with special attention on the needs of young parents, Native Americans, immigrants, LGBTQ, and low-income families.
Colonias Development Council (Doña Ana County)
Colonias Development Council offers integrated services for immigrant families: providing women with skills for community organizing, leadership development, and advocacy within the colonia communities of southern New Mexico.
Domestic Violence Resource Center (Bernalillo County)
The Domestic Violence Resource Center provides services intended to break the cycle of domestic abuse and violence through intervention, safety, education, and empowerment of victims. Some of its services include: 24-hour on-site crisis intervention, domestic violence helpline, legal advocacy, adults’ and children’s individual & group counseling, parenting classes, safe housing referrals, empowerment workshops, case management, and domestic violence education.
El Refugio (Grant County)
El Refugio operates the Casa Carmel Shelter for battered women and their children that serve all of Grant County. In addition to safe and secure temporary housing, the agency also provides individual and group counseling, child and adolescent counseling, parenting classes, domestic violence education, domestic violence offenders’ treatment and intervention, and victim advocacy. Because the area served is vast and the need is great, El Refugio has opened a second location in Lordsburg.
Friends of the Healing House (Luna County)
Friends of the Healing House provides comprehensive support and intervention services to persons affected by domestic violence by offering crisis management services of emergency shelter, legal advocacy, transportation, counseling, immigration advocacy, education and training classes, access to safe housing, and referrals to other community resources. Its primary focus is to support clients’ safety and gaining access to all County services.
RESOLVE (previously IMPACT Personal Safety) (Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and Bernalillo Counties)
Resolve empowers children and adults by teaching them to prevent and defend themselves against verbal, physical, and sexual violence through experiential classes that teach hands-on interpersonal skills and thus prevent domestic and sexual violence towards women and girls. Through partnerships with schools and other nonprofits, community groups, and Pueblos, as well as classes for the public, the agency is able to reach a wide and diverse group.
My Power, Inc. (Lea County)
My Power Inc.’s mission is to empower Lea County’s youth to reach their full individual potential by providing fun, social, and learning activities geared toward developing personal confidence, academic excellence, and enhanced life skills. For example, the program increases knowledge of how to make positive personal decisions and constructive life choices, especially in relation to drug use and sexual behavior.
New Mexico Handmade (Doña Ana County)
New Mexico Handmade provides services to increase economic security for the women of colonias communities in southern Doña Ana County by having improved access to training, education, mentoring, and leadership development. Part of New Mexico Handmade’s work is to aid women in the process of creating and selling hand-woven garments.
Silver Regional Sexual Assault Support Services (Grant and Hidalgo Counties)
Silver Regional Sexual Assault Support Services provides survivors of sexual violence in Grant and Hidalgo Counties with much needed support, including medical accompaniment, legal advocacy, individual and group therapy, advocacy and support, and community education. The agency is developing expanded services in the isolated areas of Cliff, Hahira, and San Lorenzo in Grant County and Animas, Playas, and Rodeo in Hidalgo County. The agency has also served as a coordinating group for other service providers in the area.
TenderLove Community Center (Bernalillo County)
TenderLove’s mission is to help women that are homeless, near homeless, and low-income, including survivors of domestic violence and previously incarcerated women, achieve stable, self-supporting lives for themselves and their families. Their twelve-month curriculum teaches skills women can use to enter or re-enter the job market. Skills include sewing, fashion design, and crafting, as well as basic financial skills, resume writing, and interview skills, and basic employment etiquette.
Tewa Women United (Rio Arriba and Santa Fe Counties and the Eight Northern Pueblos)
The mission of Tewa Women United (TWU) is to provide safe spaces of indigenous women to uncover the power, strength, and skills they possess to become positive forces for social change in their families and communities. TWU runs several programs that focus on environmental justice, reproductive and health justice, culturally based interventions to sexual violence and other trauma, and women’s leadership.
Women Veterans of New Mexico (Statewide)
Women Veterans of New Mexico is a program to assist women veterans entering civilian life. This involves helping to identify resources and apply for benefits, as well as other issues that arise throughout the transition. The program’s mission is to be an advocate and provide a voice for women who have served and those currently serving in the United States Armed Forces.
Young Women United (Statewide)
Young Women United (YWU) is a community organizing project by and for young women of color in New Mexico, and believes social change should come from those most impacted by an issue. YWU works with women and families to identify issues impacting their lives and build policy efforts. Their cross-sector strategies in creating community-based systemic and policy change include: Albuquerque based community organizing, statewide campaign and policy initiatives, leadership development of young women of color, creation and distribution of media by and for communities, mind-body transformative practices, art and culture shift, and movement building within state-based and national social justice movements.