A group of women are working hard for social change and women's empowerment.
"Our purpose is to build an empowered community of young women of color," said Adriann Barboa, community organizer and development coordinator of Young Women United.
The organization, at 120 Morningside Drive N.E., has a core of 28 women who self-identify as women of color, and 50 more who get involved when they can.
"We have two-pronged approach to change," Barboa said. "Our first-prong approach is this idea of building our own community institution, and our second prong is to challenge state power."
Circle of Strength, made up of 13- to 19-year-olds, meets every Thursday. Circle of Fire, 19- to 35-year-old women, meets twice a month.
"Usually, our women decide the things they want to challenge or the things they decide are negatively impacting them," Barboa said. "From there, we research that issue. We do what we call power-mapping, and we strategize, looking at the root causes of the issue."
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Five years ago, Circle of Strength sought to implement medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education in K-12 schools. They discovered that teenage pregnancy contributed to the high dropout rate in high schools.
"It was in collaborating with other organizations that have been doing similar work, but we believe that the success came from having young women of color at the center and forefront of the struggle," she said. "We believe that the people most impacted by any issue should be the decision makers and lead the struggle for change. If it's an immigrant-rights issue, the people who are making the decision and leading the fight should be immigrants."
Young Women United uses performance and visual art in many of their workshops.
"We also do trainings around popular education - things like racism, homophobia, sexism - training on the different isms," Barboa said. "In all pieces of our work, we try and add an artistic quality through all different form of media. Every year, we do Sister Fire, which is our big all-women-of-color performing arts event."
The organization also has an anti-violence against women campaign.
"The way we're framing violence is anything that prohibits a woman or women from reaching their full potential," Barboa said. "We're talking about domestic violence, rape, sexual assault and stuff like housing - violence due to immigration status, access to transportation and access to health care and education."
She said the organization tries to maintain a balance of work and funwith an open discussion group called Panocha Platicas.
"We have conversations about our vaginas," she said. "We have this whole little workbook that we're following, and it's fun. During our last Panocha Platicas, almost all the women called their moms on speaker phone and had their moms talk to us all about their vaginas. And we talked about what we call our vaginas. So many people have problems saying vagina or calling it anything."
UNM student Micaela Cadena hosted the last Panocha Platicas at her house. She said some of the mothers were surprised by the phone calls, while others had a positive response.
"Some of the mothers were like, 'What? Are you drinking? Why are you acting, like, crazy?'" she said.
Cadena said she has been able to connect with other women with similar outlooks on life, especially when it comes to parenting and encouraging their children to be free-thinking.
"It's really important for women to have spaces to organize or to be or exist on their own without white people around or women without men around," she said. "And when I heard this organization was started by women of color for women of color, it made sense to me politically and academically and personally."
