Blanca Santiago (at left), executive director of Centro Latino in Portland,
meets with Angel Mateo, Tengo Voz outreach worker, to review the latest edition
of Maine Latino and discuss community outreach strategies at the Meg Perry Center
in Portland. Photo by Lelia De Andrade
In 2009, the Maine Community Foundation’s People of Color Fund awarded grants to support a creative civic engagement project that united two of Maine’s most important Latino organizations, Centro Latino and Tengo Voz. Centro Latino is a Portland-based organization dedicated to improving social justice for Latinos through community activism, organizing, and a focus on legal and other institutional barriers to equality. Tengo Voz is a grassroots group dedicated to helping Latinas address critical needs in their community.
These organizations are led by, respectively, Blanca Santiago and Reverend Virginia Marie Rincón. These two dynamic entrepreneurial women are widely recognized for effective leadership in the greater Portland community, as well as among communities of color statewide.
“This collaboration will increase community engagement and build leadership and problem-solving skills within the Latino community,” says Lisa Sockabasin, chair of the People of Color Fund. Part of the plan is to advise and support the Basé, the Latina members of Tengo Voz, who serve as community outreach workers. “The Basé will use this training to help increase access to transportation, health care, housing, employment, and legal assistance,” notes Santiago, “and in the process they will gain the experience needed to assume more leadership responsibilities within Tengo Voz.”
These grants underscore the community foundation’s commitment to civic engagement, which, in this case, will lead to greater social justice and self-determination within the Latino community.