Equity Grants

Our vision is to create a culturally inclusive and diverse state economy in which all Asian American and Pacific Islander businesses can thrive. We will progress economic growth and prosperity in the following ways: address the immediate needs of the AAPI business community through one-on-one case management, create sustainable economic equity for AAPI businesses through our mentorship program and community advocacy project and conduct an AAPI business economic impact study to drive funding and programmatic growth to the AAPI business community in New Mexico.

Community Media Development Project

The Community Media Development Project is designed to provide internship and mentoring opportunities to youth of color by engaging them in all levels of production of our TV show. The show airs weekly on Public Access Cable and is an all-volunteer production. Interns will learn all levels of technical operations, writing, editing, marketing and interview skills. The Center seeks to purchase additional technical equipment including cameras, microphones and sound and mixing equipment which will be used both in the production of the show and as teaching tools for our young interns.

Community Resource Lab

Enlace Comunitario seeks to expand access to necessary technology for our current clients and former cohorts of Promotoras and Youth Leaders (former clients who have been trained to be peer educators within their communities.) By creating a computer resource lab, this will help current clients gain access to digital resources necessary to advance their safety and self-sufficiency plan goals. Working directly with our case managers, we can provide a safe space where clients can participate in our financial capability program and complete education modules to increase their household’s longitudinal fiscal health. Our Promotoras and Youth Leaders will also be able to enhance their tech acumen to position them for higher-paying employment opportunities and work on their professional portfolios.

Diversity Education Training Program

The NMOBA Diversity Education Training Program (NDETP) will prepare businesses to expand and leverage their diversity within the LGBTQ+ community through intensive training. This program aims to help businesses improve their understanding and communication with the LGBTQ community, enabling them to hire a more diverse workforce, increase their economic and socioeconomic impact, and strengthen outreach within the LGBTQ community. The National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NMOBA) will facilitate ongoing collaborations between the participant businesses, the consultant/subject matter expert, financial partners, and other community partners even after program funding ends.

Website and Archive of Work

Families United for Education (FUE) seeks to hire a professional community leader to create a permanent website that demonstrates our work so community members can access our public archives and see upcoming events that we’d like to share. We plan to write a yearly recap that showcases our year-in-review that combines the highlighted moments from FUE. We are very appreciative of the work our community members engage in to provide an anti-racist and safe educational environment for our youth. In addition, we would like to host a retreat that would serve as a community building and self-care event.

New Mexico Con Mujeres Program

The New Mexico Con Mujeres Program is an intergenerational gender-justice program using education, organizing and indigenous healing and informational circles to involve our families and communities in collective healing and transformation. Our core members include Chicana, Native American, Middle Eastern and Immigrant members, along with over 250 active members addressing local, state, national and international violence and poverty effecting women. Every year, the core members facilitate community classes around Chicanx feminisms, advocating for policies that protect women’s access to health and education and incubate the organizing of political and cultural events. With this grant, we will offer ten feminist, bilingual youth workshops and host a feminist book club throughout the year.

Family Coordinator Assistance

This specific grant would be used to aid the Family Coordinator in their efforts to connecting with Asian and Pacific Islander parents to attend and participate in regular workshops and other learning opportunities. Our workshops are designed to build and develop self-sufficiency, informed decision making and power among API families and children. Over the course of 2022, our Family Coordinator will host quarterly trainings and workshops tailored to the cultural backgrounds and specific needs of various communities.

Disability Podcasts

We will produce 6-7 podcast episodes with topics covering how living with a disability affects people’s lives in social, medical, psychological and spiritual moments throughout different phases of their life. The intended outcome is to bring a deeper awareness of disability policies and lived realities directly from a disabled perspective. We will document the lives of students, organizers, advocates and mentors participating in a self-advocacy class organized by The New Mexico Center for Self-Advocacy over a two-month period. Each episode will have a specific topic and guest speaker who will share stories and insight, perhaps uncovering other issues within the disabled community.

Multidisciplinary Workshops

Working Classroom programs engage youth through professional multidisciplinary workshops including visual, media, theater and public art. Our workshops build technical skills, creative expression, and offer mentorship opportunities where students learn directly from local, national, and international artists and leaders. Working Classroom prioritizes serving the BIPOC community as well as low income families and youth in greater Albuquerque. For the upcoming 2022 fiscal year we are planning to bring back more of our in-person workshops, youth and family social support, and community building opportunities. Working Classroom will continue our arts education workshops for Gordon Bernell Community School and the Native American Community Academy and plan to launch a similar partnership with South Valley Prep where we will manage two, twelve-week afterschool workshops throughout the school year. We will also host beginner and intermediate afterschool workshops onsite at Working Classroom, open to Albuquerque youth 12-22 where we will create documentary films that highlight the 30-year history of Working Classroom’s mural program in the Albuquerque Metro-area. We also plan to create a mural inside HopeWork’s new Hope Village and restore a mural painted several years ago at Thomas Bell Community Center. All of these will be led by diverse, professional artists and created with the assistance of compensated apprentice youth while involving community members in the concept and completion.

Community Asset Mapping/Running Medicine Program

Native Health Initiative plans to focus on the two community programs. Our Community Asset Mapping Program will provide 3-4 free workshops to all health professionals, professors, students, community members, and city employees to understand asset/strength-based approaches. During these workshops we intend to provide stipends for guest speakers and honorariums to attend. Our Running Medicine Program will provide 10-week sessions in the Spring, Summer and Fall. This program will be available to youth and their families as well as community members wanting to participate in physical, social, emotional and spiritual aspects of health through running and walking.

Outdoor Equity Workshops

SemiYA! (YA = Youth Activation) program. The Semilla Project launched the SemiYA! program last year with a series of pilot events to engage Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in building the leadership skills and foundations needed to advocate for long-term, tangible, and sustainable solutions to advance equity and justice in New Mexico. SemiYa! combines outdoor land-based learning and wellness with healing and grounding practices, as well as equity-based curricula that (re)connect BIPOC youth and young adults to their own identities and cultures. We will add three backcountry snowshoe tours in the Taos wilderness between January and March of 2022. Curricula for this excursion will include climate change and climate justice in New Mexico as well as wilderness safety, opportunities in land management and stewardship, winter sports, and environmental science. Grant funds will support snowshoe equipment to make this unique experience possible for BIPOC youth.

Equity-focused Programs

The goal of our work is to learn more about how we could create a more equitable and informed cannabis industry in Albuquerque, New Mexico by designing and planning equity-focused programming including webinars, events and programs. Funding would be used to support contractors, guest speakers, and expenses for events. Our project outcomes include building a more united, collaborative and equitable community in Albuquerque and beyond. We will provide a template for how future cannabis equity events and conferences can be done. We hope to gather like-minded operators, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, investors, state regulators and other New Mexico-based professionals. During these events we hope to network with members of the Equity Trade Certification to strategize and think creatively about the cannabis industry in New Mexico through mentorship, technology and ways to certify equity brands and allies. We also hope to learn and share about the latest technology, tools and resources to support entrepreneurs in this industry.

Equity Book Collection

NAPPR will be purchasing equity-related book collections for staff to use with the 500 families and children we serve which will support our home visitor staff members in the curriculum they teach involving equity, inclusion, and diversity. We also intend to have additional resource materials for the families we serve. We plan on completing this project within the first six months of 2022.

Leadership Enrichment Programs

New Mexico Child Advocacy Network (NMCAN) authentically engages young people ages 14-25 that are impacted by foster care, the juvenile justice system, and/or homelessness while advocating for systems change that improves their transition to adulthood and positively transforms our community. We accomplish this through leadership enrichment programs for young people and youth organizing. Our project will focus on supporting the NMCAN staff as we continue to deepen our learning and activities related to Race Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI). We will work with staff to clearly name the vision we want to see for the field of child welfare and our organization’s role within it. NMCAN is building our internal capacity around deepening our ability to assess child welfare through a race equity lens and support young people impacted by systems of oppression, allowing these young advocates to identify and take the lead on advancing policies and practices that work to dismantle systemic racism.

Urban Indigenous Elders and Youth Council

Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO) in collaboration with 21 member organizations of the Native Leadership Collective of Albuquerque, will work with the Albuquerque Native community to establish the Urban Indigenous Elders/Youth Council to facilitate the creation of an urban Indigenous resource center. AIO advances the rights of Indigenous peoples through Indigenous values-based leadership development, transformative community development, hosting collaborative action networks, and sharing Indigenous worldviews and positive contemporary Indigenous narratives. AIO is headquartered in Albuquerque where we are part of the urban Native community and provide support to local community activities and initiatives. The Urban Indigenous Elders/Youth Council project will facilitate the creation of an Indigenous approach to community relationship, participation, and responsibility. The intergenerational Council will be a sustaining force that will provide vision and contribute community input to building a community resource center that will be grounded in community-driven decision-making processes.

Voices In Action

Voices In Action is a youth group that focuses on developing advocacy and leadership skills for middle and high school aged youth. We work to create student-led trainings and campaigns that will help eliminate inequities in the education system and incorporate student voices in decision making at Albuquerque Public Schools. Our campaigns are youth-created and youth-led.

Summer of Dreams Program

The New Mexico Dream Team's (NMDT) Summer of Dreams Program is a core component of our education justice work. NMDT’s Education Justice program is a comprehensive approach to meeting the unique needs of undocumented, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ students who face systemic and social barriers to life, education, opportunity, wellness, and safety. Our comprehensive approach ranges from statewide advocacy campaigns that transform policy and open opportunity for immigrant youth to on-campus student organizing and educator training. Our DreamZone trainings help educators make their campuses and policies more welcoming and build awareness of the barriers faced by the immigrant community. Our program also shares resources that are available to undocumented students in applying for college and receiving financial assistance to attend.

LGBTQ+ Trainings and Workshops

Our goal is to conduct a minimum of five rural/ frontier community trainings throughout New Mexico and a minimum of five trainings in the Albuquerque metro region. We aim to reach 300 participants via trainings and disseminate resources to 100 educators, at least 50 packets to be disseminated to educators working in rural/ frontier communities. The trainings will be a combination of Creating Safer Spaces for LGBTQ+ Youth, Youth Mental Health First Aid (YMHFA), and Question Persuade Refer (QPR): Suicide Prevention. The counts of each training will be determined on community need. We are uniquely situated to provide these trainings as we are the only organization that provides a specific curriculum tailored to educators and the communities receiving the trainings. We are committed to working with GLSEN National to create new trainings and materials as need increases, allowing us to ensure we are creating evidence-based, intersectional, and specified materials to advance learning and growth for everyone involved.

Native Economic Advancement and Development

The Native Economic Advancement & Development (NEAD) initiative is a mission to achieve successful economic development initiatives while incorporating, strengthening and building upon community and tribal values. Our outcome seeks to build capacity to foster economic growth, create jobs, and support the native community centered on three focus areas: Workforce Development, Entrepreneurship, and Business Development. The goals of NEAD include: 1) Conducting workforce development trainings and offer support to enhance the opportunities of existing employees and individuals seeking employment. 2) Improve access to capital for businesses located on or off tribal land to support business and job growth. 3) Develop business leadership and organizational capacity to scale the business in three years, aiming to train and hire more people for quality jobs. 4) Promote business growth through contracting and other national, regional, and local business opportunities through training, collaboration strategies, and effective policy.

Mariposas Program

Mariposas identifies the intersections of the built environment, identity-based community requisites and health outcomes. It is in this space where Community Health Workers (CHW) can take an active role in community engagement, asset mapping, develop system organizing tools, and become integral in placed-based strategic planning activities. Mariposas aims to train CHW through in-person, hybrid, and online options. Participants will attain state accreditations as CHW and Peer Support Workers. Our goal is to build stronger, community-led communities. CHW have been shown to mobilize inputs and put processes in action to achieve performance objectives in identified social determinants of health.

Black Men's Mental Health Initiative

The Black Men's Mental Health Initiative will engage Black, male mental health providers affiliated with the NM Black Mental Health Coalition to address the mental health of Black men and boys. This population is grossly under-represented in mental health professions and mental health service utilization, but grossly over-represented in school conduct reports, crime reports, unemployment, and health disparities.

Healing for Black Women

The Healing for Black Women Fund exists to address the disparities that exist in our healthcare systems for Black women, gender-nonconforming, and non-binary beings accessing healing services and mental health care that they need. The HFBWF seeks to create low-barrier access to offerings for healing services by working directly with practitioners to establish payment for services. The intended outcomes for this project are: -Create equitable access to culturally responsive and concordant healing services for Black women, gender non-conforming, and non-binary people in Albuquerque by providing payment for 25-35 healing sessions. -Address the inequitable gap in access to Black healing practitioners, including licensed mental health professionals, by making direct payments for services.

Behavioral Health Mentorship Program

El Puente de Encuentros (EPdE) is a non-profit organization that seeks to be a conduit of change in the behavioral health field in New Mexico. Currently, EPdE strives not only to enhance the preparedness of future behavioral health practitioners to meet the unique needs of Bernalillo county and NM, but specifically to equip culturally and linguistically diverse undergraduate and graduate students preparing for careers in behavioral health to have the support, guidance, and access to opportunities to become future leaders in our state through a two-semester Fellowship program. The program engages students in dynamic seminars led by experts in the field and facilitates their development of innovative community-based projects targeting the behavioral health issues that are rooted in structural and cultural inequity. With the support of the Equity in Albuquerque Grant, we will enhance the program by launching a pilot project to pair our fellowship students with seasoned behavioral health practitioners who will serve as mentors to the students throughout their fellowship. By fostering professional relationships between BIPOC students and mentors who have had shared experiences, we hope to expand the future base of culturally and linguistically diverse behavioral health providers by connecting, engaging, and supporting them through their studies and as they enter the workforce.

Language Access Policy

United Voices for Newcomer Rights (UVNR) is a refugee-led organization that proposes to improve language access for refugees in Central New Mexico through a strategic systems-change effort focused on Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) and  the University of New Mexico Hospital (UNMH). Through collaborating with key networks, engaging refugees as leaders in language access, and developing policy briefs, UVNR will: 1) change APS policy to provide interpretation for youth with mental and behavioral health disadvantages. 2) Change UNMH protocol to make in-person interpretation by UVNR certified interpreters available for refugees from regions of Africa, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq for certain key health areas. These two urgent policy/practice changes were identified by refugee families and leaders as key priorities and critical components of the work needed to reduce existing health disparities.

Legal Research

Southwest Women's Law Center (SWLC) provides legal education and limited legal services for low-income women and their families. This grant will help us acquire a law clerk to assist with legal research for our clients. Our services include outreach and community legal education on the following substantive issues: 1) childcare assistance, 2) domestic violence and abuse, 3) use and application of the Fair Pay for Women Statute under the Human Rights Statute, 4) access to quality affordable healthcare, including access to Medicaid and Medicare, 5) paid family medical leave in New Mexico, 6) Pregnant Worker Accommodations, 7) tax statutes and policies adversely affecting women and girls in New Mexico, and 8) Title IX issues in public schools, including (a) sex education, (b) financial literacy, (c) equal access to sports and/or athletic programs by girls in middle and high school, and (d) the rights of pregnant and parenting students in middle and high schools. Our services also include attorneys who provide limited legal advice and counseling to individuals who require legal assistance. Our project outcomes seek to provide services to approximately 140 intakes, benefitting 325 low-income New Mexicans.