Campaign to Purchase Nueva Esperanza Community Youth Center
The Community Youth Center—which has served as a refuge for young people for over a decade and a hub for the Nueva Esperanza Community Action program— is for sale.
Purchasing the Community Youth Center will not only allow for the Nueva Esperanza program to continue, but will also make it possible for new community initiatives to emerge as new scholars join the program.
Campaign to Purchase Nueva Esperanza Community Youth Center
The Community Youth Center—which has served as a refuge for young people for over a decade and a hub for the Nueva Esperanza Community Action program— is for sale.
Purchasing the Community Youth Center will not only allow for the Nueva Esperanza program to continue, but will also make it possible for new community initiatives to emerge as new scholars join the program.
Campaign to Purchase Nueva Esperanza Community Youth Center
The Community Youth Center—which has served as a refuge for young people for over a decade and a hub for the Nueva Esperanza Community Action program— is for sale.
Purchasing the Community Youth Center will not only allow for the Nueva Esperanza program to continue, but will also make it possible for new community initiatives to emerge as new scholars join the program.
Nueva Esperanza Youth Action Center
In October, 2020, Nueva Esperanza purchased the Youth Action Center, which has served as a refuge for young people for over a decade and a hub for the Nueva Esperanza Community Action Program.
Contributions to the Youth Action Center's sustainability will not only allow for the Nueva Esperanza program to continue, but will also make it possible for new community initiatives to emerge as new Community Healers join the Nueva Esperanza sisterhood.
Present
Past
The Youth Action Center, pictured above, has been a place for young people to deepen and discover their gifts since 2004. It has been a space of sanctuary for many young people who have found belonging, purpose, and vision for their lives at the Center.
The safety and healing made possible at the Center is otherwise hard to come by, in a community rife with inter-generational trauma and violence; legacies of the civil war, economic marginalization, and on-going police brutality.
Many community members in their 20's claim that if it were not for the sense of belonging they found at the Youth Action Center, they would likely not have survived their youth. In the absence of this support, they would have given into the pressure to join a gang or make the dangerous journey to the United States in search of relative security.
The owners of the Youth Action Center decided to sell the building in order to be able to fund the education of their triplet grand-children. They desired for the Center to continue serving its original purpose of being a hub for youth healing and community action. As such, they agreed to sell it to Nueva Espernza.
Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the formal programming at the Youth Action Center was temporarily halted for several months. However, this hibernation period allowed for time to both celebrate and evaluate the program thus far, and dream and build into the future.
With the purchase of the home in September, 2020, the home again became a hub for all of the Nueva Esperanza Sisterhood to plan, carry out, and evaluate their community engagement activities, like the community youth group, Jóvenes en Acción (Youth in Action).
The Community Center is active Monday through Sunday. On Mondays, community members receive psychological attention by a gifted clinician who provides this offering in the community each week. The house is open Tuesday-Sunday for group activities and one-on-one support. The children's group, youth group, and women's group make use of the space, as do community members at large for celebrations and grief rituals.
Present
Future
The Nueva Esperanza Youth Action Center will continue to serve as an oasis for Nueva Esperanza residential Community Healers to form an intentional community to support one another on their journeys of healing and growth as individuals and as community leaders.
The Center will also continue to serve as the meeting and relational hub for all Nueva Esperanza Sisterhood members. It will be the space from which they will envision and carry out the community projects that they have initiated as part of their involvement in the program. This is the core of the Nueva Espernza Community Action Program, which is strategically designed to create a long-term anchor of physical and emotional health in the community. From this space, young leaders channel their community's resilience to interrupt cycles of harm and create the future they envision.
The Community Healers are dedicated particularly to ending cycles of sexual violence and creating a much needed safe space for children and youth to reveal abusive situations, learn about healthy sexuality, and improve their relationships with themselves, their families and their peers.
Additionally, they continue to hold the Center's longtime vision of providing a space of belonging and refuge, so that young people can craft a life for themselves beyond gang involvement or outward migration.
The women's group, youth group, and children's groups will continue to meet ongoingly, forging bonds of deepened support, healing, and resilience, amidst the pressures of systemic oppression. In the fall of 2023, we intend to begin two more groups in the house, one focused on healthy masculinity and one focused on leadership training for active community leaders.
Raised
so far
Why Contribute?
The forces of violence and marginalization that affect Salvadoran youth have their roots in years of United States military and economic policies which have wreaked havoc on the region for decades.
US taxpayer dollars were used for 12 years to train and fund the Salvadoran army in killing 70,000 Salvadoran people throughout the 1980s, and since the 1992 peace accords the US has continued to send billions of dollars in military aid to the region, further destabilizing communities like the one where Nueva Esperanza scholars live. Scholars state that the violent Salvadoran police force poses the greatest threat to their safety and well-being, despite the popular belief that gangs are the biggest threat to safety. Additionally, economic policies like CAFTA have made it increasingly difficult for Salvadorans to compete in the global market and have forced thousands of Salvadorans to migrate to meet their basic needs.
US citizens' resources continue to be funneled into the further traumatization and militarization of El Salvador, whether or not they are aware of it. Contributing to the Nueva Esperanza program is a way to direct resources to El Salvador for healing, not for furthering harm.
Contributions support youth who are working hard to heal and transform the inter-generational violence and trauma they have inherited through structures of global imperialism. As such, contributing to Nueva Esperanza is a concrete way to say "no" to the systems of oppression that have produced such widespread suffering and inequity, and "YES" to the life-giving work harnessing community resilience and transforming cycles of harm.
Current Needs
Current Outstanding Program Needs Include:
Monthly Contributions Towards:
-University scholarship funds to allow 7 new community healers to complete their first year of studies
-Covering the cost of on-going somatic therapy for current and
incoming community healers to do the deep work of personal trauma
healing as they create healing spaces for others.
One Time Contributions Towards:
-House expenses (paint for murals, books for library, plants for
community garden, etc.).
- Educational and team building outings for youth action leaders
- Magdalena's livelihood (Magda is the full-time program director)
If you are able to contribute financially, please choose an amount you can willingly and joyfully offer, which will not jeopardize your ability to sustain your basic needs.
Thank you for considering redistributing resources to support the construction of a world that works for all.
Thanks to those who trust in the significance of this initiative and have been willing to channel resources towards this community, the cost of purchasing the Youth Action Center itself has been covered. Hooray!
Contribute:
For ease of online contributions, please use the Paypal link above. Contributions are tax-deductible.
If you prefer Paypal not take a percentage of your contribution, please contact Jenna Knapp (nuevaesperanzabecarios@gmail.com) to explore alternative payment avenues.
Thank you!
