Welcome to the first edition of this year’s MÁS newsletter. After a two-year hiatus, the MÁS team is very excited to be able to resume the organization’s newsletter. We want to use it as a tool to keep our community informed and connected with the developments, events and programs of our organization. We want this bulletin to also be a space for artists and groups that work to spread Afro-Latin culture in the city of Seattle and its surroundings to share information about their events and activities. Throughout this year our newsletter will be published bi-monthly and will have the information spaces that we had before.

Additionally, we have started a new space dedicated to the voice of our young people, which we entitled ” Connecting MORE “.

In this first edition, you will be able to read the first interview of this new youth section, conducted by the young Pedro Martinez-Pinto with Silvio Dos Reis, artist/capoerista and member of the MAS board of directors.

In this space you can read interviews made by our young people. This is a pilot project that we are implementing where we want to offer our young people the opportunity to connect with ancestral knowledge, through interviews with artists and community leaders from the different regions that make up the black diaspora in the Americas and who do the work to spread that knowledge here in and around the Seattle area. With this initiative, we want to create a meeting platform between young people from different communities and create bridges between communities through the voices of their young people. The objective is to encourage the interest of young people to approach ancestral knowledge while stimulating their curiosity to investigate their racial identity through a process of self-discovery that promotes the strengthening of their voices. Our vision to develop in this program is to create an educational opportunity focused on the experiential / experiential, with the aim of closing the gap in the educational system, providing a relevant curriculum that highlights and focuses on the historical and cultural contributions of people of African descent. from the Caribbean, Central America and South America regions.

Learning as an organization in the last year

During 2019, MÁS was immersed in training work with NAC (Nonprofit Assistance Center), an organization that at the end of 2019 joined Wayfind becoming Community RISE (CR)

With the advice of NAC/CR, a restructuring of the board of directors was made, which assumed the commitment to work as a collective without the presence of an executive director for the period of 2020, we also identified our strengths and weaknesses, which helped us to identify which are the legal steps that we must take to be in a good standard as a non-profit organization, we strengthened our official collaboration with Unión Cultural Center (UCC) as an organization that welcomes us in its physical space, and we established a system of finances appropriate to the size of our organization. This year we are once again participating in this wonderful 9-month training with 3 specific objectives:

1. Create a comprehensive fundraising strategy to help us ensure the stability of the organization.
2. Establish a volunteer bank and a strong training program.
3. Define and develop strategies to materialize the vision for the next 5 years.

We know that we still have a long way to go to achieve the impact and scope that we envision, but we are very proud of the progress we have made. Today more than ever we understand that our work is necessary and urgent, that is why we are committed to continue giving continuity to the work of generating and managing spaces where Afro-Latin and/or Afro-indigenous communities can meet and nurture each other; at the same time that we continue to build bridges with other invisible communities. The work of decolonizing and fighting anti-blackness cannot stop.

We want to take this opportunity to invite you to meet the members of the current board of directors who began their joint work in January 2020, and to welcome a new member who has recently joined, although he has been a strong ally and collaborator of the organization since we started, “Wilbor Guerrero ”, Welcome to our team! https://movimientoafrolatino.org/about#board-members

Reflection of one of the members of the board of directors on the circle of peace that we carried out last June 13, 2020

Facilitated by Mónica Rojas and Jabalí Stewart, members of Huayruro, an expert group in organizational leadership, grassroots and healing work.

Help us to help, your contribution is important

Dear community, today more than ever we need your support to support our people. Please consider donating and supporting MÁS in their effort to raise money to help 15 Afro-Latino artists. Share our campaign with your contact networks. The need is immediate, do not wait any longer to contribute.