Institute of Peace & Community Development

MAKE THE DREAM A REALITY: THE NEXT 50 YEARS OF MOVEMENT BUILDING

Transforming its current property at 1817 Soquel Ave, Barrios Unidos looks to build a modernized institute, serving as a physical community anchor for the next generation of community leaders. Year round, the institute will provide culturally rooted programs, indigenous based ceremony, food assistance, job training, art building, industry, and a central plaza for gatherings, healing, and learning.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING FORTHE NEXT GENERATION

As housing prices skyrocket, our young people, Santa Cruz natives, historically marginalized communities, artists, students, and workers can no longer afford to live here. This not only diminishes the cultural richness of our area but forces our non-profit workforce and volunteer base to flee to more affordable areas. We need to build a space where our community members can live with dignity. This will allow them to contribute their skills and realize their sacred purpose as community leaders. The Barrios Institute of Peace and Community Development will incorporate an affordable housing complex that allows for opportunity.

A PLACE FOR EXCHANGE, LEARNING AND BELONGING

Barrios will serve as an Anchor Institution – a space of passage, belonging, learning and exchange. The space will hold our screen-printing shop, audio engineering program, coffee shop, and other vocational training programs, while providing food assistance through our food pantry program, support previously incarcerated individuals through our reentry program, and leadership development through our youth program. Our institute will provide space for community events, concerts, and other events- giving the community a place to gather and strengthen bonds.

LA CULTURA CURA / CULTURE CURES

A communal hub for people to heal and regain one’s cultural bearings; a safe space for unconditional acceptance, cultural expression, and inter-cultural exchange; an organic learning center to develop leaders, nurture healthy intergenerational relationships, and preserve the sacred passage of ancestral values-based knowledge for building traditional communal structures that nurture its people. The Institute will provide spaces that hold sweat lodge ceremonies, circulos, drum circles, danza, and many more indigenous based, culturally rooted activities-something that is novel in Santa Cruz.

ADVOCACY IN ACTION

The Barrios Unidos Institute of Peace and Community Development will represent decades worth of work and sacrifice and act as an anchor and blueprint for the next generations to face the great social problems of our time and further achieve peace in our communities. It will act as a mobilizing structure – allowing our youth to lead educational workshops, plan and attend advocacy events, and be at the frontline of social change. Leaders from across the country will travel to the institute, giving the Santa Cruz community access to nationwide networks and mentorship.