Dear MÁS Community,
This year 2021 has passed very quickly, without realizing it we are close to another end of the year. We continue to adapt and learn from the pandemic and from each situation that COVID-19 brings us, with the different variants of the virus and the impact it has on our communities. Nonetheless, our community’s capacity for adaptation and resilience always offers us the strength and wisdom necessary to go through these difficult moments and understand how to root ourselves to what is essential, to continue celebrating life, our ancestors, to make room for creation and making art, strengthen cultural ties, maintain connections and invent new ways of being together.
Thus, we want to close the year by celebrating and sharing this year’s MÁS achievements and remembering that our ancestors always light the way for us.
The MÁS team wishes you Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year.
we want to share a summary of the events of 2021
2021 MÁS Achievements
Conectándonos MÁS
This program connects 15 to 20 years old Afrolatinxs / Afroindígenas and / or Latinxs youths. During 10 biweekly meetings, youths participate in seminars on Afrolatinidad, interview local Afrolatinxs / Afroindígenas artists and have the opportunity to compose expository pieces that are published on the MÁS website and create a work of art that explore their own cultural heritage. The program culminates with a celebration and exhibition of youth’s work, who also receive a small financial reward for their participation.
This year, thanks to the support of the Seattle Foundation through its N2N program, we were able to implement the pilot of this youth program. From March 2021 to August 2021, six (6) youths were participating in the program and were connected with six (6) Afro-Latinx Artists residing in the Seattle area and doing Afro-Latin arts outreach work.
We are currently working to give continuity to this program and plan to start a new cycle in March 2022.
We invite you to click the program link so you can appreciate the work done by the youths this year.
MÁS Conversaciones para MÁS Orgullo
This virtual space was born within the framework of the COVID-19 pandemic, in response to national racial tensions surfacing in May 2020. The aim was to raise awareness about anti-blackness feelings and provide a space of support and healing for members of our community. Our firm intention is to focus the voices of Afrodescendant and Afro-Indigenous people, and highlight community dialogue and art as a way to reinvent and create space to connect and strengthen the identities that oppressive systems try to erase.
This year we carried out two series of three conversations each:
- Serie Afro Aesthetic: Braiding Identity, Wisdom and Resistance (March 13), Aesthetics, Body and Domestic Work (April 24); Arts as a route for Restoration and Liberation (May 29);
- Serie Territories of Freedom: Testimonies from the Afro Diaspora: Conversation # 1 (October 16), Conversation # 2 (November 13), Conversation # 3 (December 11). We carried out this second series with funding and technical support from PeoplesHub.
This space has been one of great learning, communion and healing both for those who organize it and for all participants. For this reason we keep working to establish it as a permanent program of the organization. We continue to organize ourselves to bring two new series of conversations for 2022.
A deep thanks to the “Comadres” who braid their voices every week to build this much-needed space: Haydee Lavariega, Teresita Bazan, Delia Pinto Santini, Sandra Huber, Minox Minoty, Meyby Ugueto Ponce, Rayza De La Hoz and Milvia Berenice Pacheco Salvatierra.
MÁS Workshops
Afro Hair Care and Traditional Turbans
From the experience of “MÁS conversaciones para MÁS Orgullo” we realized that we had to create a specific space for restoration and self-care linked to the topics we dealt with in those conversations. These workshops are MÁS answers to give continuity to this process of restoration. A space to gather together to heal collectively and share ancestral knowledge that helps us repair the wounds caused by colonial processes.
In these two workshops, our comadre Rayza De La Hoz shared several recipes for natural massages for Afro hair care, as well as a theoretical and analytical framework of the impact that anti-blackness and colonial processes have on the way we relate to each other. We also discussed the importance of Afro hair care and the use of the turban as a political tool of resistance, empowerment, connection and manifestation of the ancestral legacy.
These workshops were held in August, with the support and financial subsidy of Verdant Health Commission
At the beginning of this year the production of our first musical track “El Eslabón” was completed. Participating artists recorded in Seattle, Washington from their homes during the 2020 quarantine. We hope to release the musical video of this song in the first trimester of 2022.
We thank the efforts and work of the following participating artists:
Music: Eduardo Montero and Otoqui Reyes. Lyrics: Eduardo Montero, Otoqui Reyes, Roberto Bonaccorso, Alfredo Chávez and Mónica Rojas-Stewart. Arrangements and Musical Production: Eduardo Montero. Participating Musicians: Roberto Bonaccorso, Lian Caspi, Alfredo Chavez, Diego Coy, Adonis Mabin, Eduardo Montero and Mónica Rojas-Stewart.Executive Production: Mónica Rojas-Stewart. Mixed, edited and mastered by Omar Rojas in Lima, Perú.
MÁS Versadas, Oral Traditions that Heal
For this virtual event that took place on Saturday, November 20, we joined the COVID-19 vaccine Outreach Program in partnership with the Washington Department of Health. The event was also created in collaboration with the Mental Health Matter program.
The objective of this campaign was to increase awareness of the Afro-Latino community about the importance of getting vaccinated to protect themselves from COVID-19, as a tool that helps us achieve the goal of meeting in person and without fear to celebrate our traditions. We believe that parties, singing and dancing connect us socially and spiritually, and provide us with physical and emotional well-being that strengthens our mental health. (Enter the link to learn more about this beautiful and beneficial program that had the participation of Afro-Latinx artists from Mexico, Venezuela, Puerto Rico and Panama.)
MÁS 2021 Grants and Collaborations
Our deep gratitude to all our sponsors and collaborators this year, thanks to their support and collaboration we have been able to grow as an organization and get closer to our vision. Thanks to the MÁS board of directors and all the volunteers who contribute to making the MÁS experience possible; and to all community members who follow us, support us and continue to believe that ‘we are stronger united’.
- Seattle foundation / N2N Thanks to the grant we received from the N2N program, we were able to carry out the pilot program of “Conectándonos MÁS”.
- Creative Equity Fund 2021/2022 This program supports community organizations in King County that use the arts and culture to advance their work toward racial justice. MÁS was one of 14 organizations selected to receive unrestricted funding for two consecutive years to continue the development and implementation of our mission. Thanks to this scholarship we have been able to have funds to support our first paid part-time position and hire our Executive Director (ED), Milvia Pacheco, who has been doing this work on a voluntary basis since 2019. MÁS has been sustained with the love and power of community volunteer work, we believe that our first part-time ED position is a step forward towards consolidating a long-term sustainable organization.
- RVC Fellowship program We are also recipients of RVC’s Community Impact Scholarship Program, which will place a talented BIPOC leader in a full-time position for two years (2022-2024) in our organization. RVC will provide training, salary, and benefits to the selected scholarship leader. If you are BIPOC, have some experience working in the area of development and fundraising and you are interested in working with us through this program, click on the program link for more information, you can also write to us at movimientoafrolatinoseattle@gmail.com letting us know that you are interested in the fellowship position.
- The Share Fund: We were also chosen by the Share Fund committee to receive a small unconditional and unrestricted financial support for our general operations, in support of the work we do to advance equity and social justice.
- America Online Giving Foundation/ Benevity Through this platform we have received donations since 2020. This year we want to thank all the donors who used this platform in 2021 and chose to support our mission. Your support is essential.
- State Department of Health ‘s Community Media Outreach COVID-19 communications program Through these funds we were able to carry out the ‘MÁS Versadas: Oral Traditions that Heal’ event on November 20, as part of the campaign to disseminate the importance of COVID-19 vaccination.
- PeoplesHub: We want to thank PeoplesHub for their financial and technical support in conducting the latest series of ‘MÁS Conversaciones para MÁS Orgullo’. Special thanks to Hafidha Acuay for believing in this program and for connecting us with PeoplesHub
- Verdant Health Commission: Our thanks to Verdant for the financial support for the online workshops: Care of Afro hair and Traditional turbans, and especially to Sandra Huber for her enthusiasm and unconditional support to the work that MÁS does.
- Mental Health Matters. This year MÁS began a collaboration with the Mental Health Matters program to create community events that emphasize the importance of art and cultural events in the task of strengthening the mental health of our community. As part of this collaboration, Mental Health Matters participated in the coordination of the event ‘MAS Versadas: Oral Traditions that Heal’, on November 20. We will continue working with them to hold more community events in 2022.
- Unión Cultural Center Union Cultural Center has been the home of MÁS since this project began. We are infinitely grateful to Leika Suzumura and Silvio Dos Reis for being family and offering us lodging in the community center that they run.
We thank you for your continued support and invite you to consider making an end-of-the-year donation today. You know first-hand the importance and impact of the work we do, and we count on you to continue making it possible. Thanks!
