Spanish

Summary of the successes of MÁS 2020

Activities related to the Covid-19 pandemic

• We implemented a Covid-19 impact GoFundMe campaign to support Afro-Latino artists in the MÁS community. Between April and May 2020, we raised $3,677 that was distributed among a total of 12 artists/organizations.
• We partnered with OIRA (Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs) to provide language assistance to members of the Spanish-speaking community who applied for the ‘Seattle Covid-19 Disaster Relief Funds for Immigrants’. We were able to use city funds to hire 4 community members to work with us for a month providing language assistance services for 8 hours a day, during the three weeks the program was open receiving applications from the public. We sent text messages and made phone calls to 1,000 immigrants subscribed to Covid19 Mutual Aid (our partner organization in this effort). One-on-one discussions about the eligibility criteria for the funds were held with approximately 50 members of the indigenous community. Contract staff and volunteers completed a total of 102 applications.

Programs started in 2020

• In response to national racial tensions in May 2020, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, MÁS initiated a Community Conversation Series: “MORE Conversation for MORE PRIDE” to address anti-Black sentiments and provide a supportive space and healing, for members of our community. From June to August we implement 5 conversations. Later in the year, we secured funding from a Seattle Parks and Recreation grant to implement two more conversations, which took place on November 28 and December 5, 2020. Some reflections from this series can be found in the posts on the website of MORE. We have plans to continue this program in 2021 – stay tuned!
• We started a pilot Youth Program called ‘Connecting MORE’: a youth from the community volunteered with MÁS, as part of his high school volunteer hour requirement, to interview an Afro-Latino artist and explore his own artistic potential while He reflected on his own identity. His final work was published in our June 2020 newsletter. We will work to obtain funds for the expansion of this program this coming year. Our vision is that ‘Connecting MORE’ will educate and inspire young people to connect with and explore their ancestral roots, while learning about the cultural contributions of Afro-descendants in Latin America and the Caribbean. Our young people lack support for the healthy construction of their Afro-Latino and Afro-Indigenous identities in formal education. Part of this is due to the lack of curricular content that is culturally relevant to Black and Indigenous peoples. This creates a gap in our youth’s ability to assert their identities, which directly affects their positionality by encouraging them to distance themselves from their inherited cultural identities. ‘Connecting MORE’ tries to prevent and repair this damage by connecting young people with artists (who can be their referents) and community leaders who can affirm their identities by sharing Afro-descendant ancestral knowledge.

Collaborations achieved

• In association with LUSS (Latinos Unidos of South Sound) MÁS contributed to the implementation of the MÁS LUSS 2020 festival that this year consciously highlighted Afro-Latino artists. The participation of MÁS had a great impact in this year’s festival by providing the integration of 12 Afro-Latino artists from a total of 18 participating groups/artists. The virtual festival, which lasted a full week, reached a total number of 3,678 views, with an average of 613 people per event.
• In collaboration with the University of Washington School of Ethnomusicology and Professor Shannon Dudley, MÁS participated in the coordination of the fall class, UW Musen 389 World Music: ‘Drum, Dance and Diaspora: Afro-Latin and Indigenous Arts in Dialogue’ . The classes were open to members of the MÁS community who shared the space with UW students to learn from Brazilian artists (‘Afro-Brazilian Dance with Dora Oliveira and Capoeira Angola with Mestre Silvio Dos Reis’), Puerto Ricans (‘Bomba with Otoqui Reyes and Sara Silva-Soto from the group ‘Hijos de Agüeybaná’) and Garífunas (‘Paranda Garífuna with Ricardo Guity and Silvia Blanco’).
• The UW collaboration also involved the coordination of three community conversations in collaboration with the UCC (Union Cultural Center) and its ‘Illuminate’ program. These conversations were part of the UW class and were also open to the general public in a virtual format (via Facebook live). Students and community members who attended the class had the opportunity to experience conversations between the master artists who taught the classes and their fellow artists, who practice the same artistic tradition in their respective places of origin. These virtual conversations had a total of approximately 800 views each.

Operational improvements

• MÁS improved and updated its website, including the addition of a donation button, so that those who want to financially support MÁS programs and operations have easy access to that possibility.
• A MÁS Volunteer Manual was created in Spanish and will be implemented in 2021. This handbook is currently under revision and will be translated into English.
• The structure of both the MAS Board of Directors and the different work committees was defined.
• We started a review of the MÁS mission and have plans to update it during the first quarter of 2021.

We are thus very excited about the consolidation of MÁS this year and the plans for the next one. We hope to communicate with you again very soon to continue building spaces and experiences together! If you have collaboration ideas, reflections or feedback for us we will be happy to hear from you! Write us at movimentoafrolatinoseattle@gmail.com

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