Amount: $25,000 / Spring 2016
Javier Benavidez, Executive Director
Website: http://www.swop.net/
Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP) is a multi-issue, intergenerational organization founded in 1980 with an explicitly anti-racist and values-based social justice reform agenda for New Mexico. Over the last few years, SWOP youth have had success in bringing visibility and change to systemic education and food justice issues for primarily Latino communities in Albuquerque. SWOP youth seek to confront systemic racial inequity in schools by improving school climate, making school food more affordable and nutritious and reducing suspensions and expulsions of students of color. This year, with a one year renewal grant from Hazen, SWOP youth will organize for school board approval of the SWOP Student Handbook; to reduce high-stakes testing and school privatization; and to stop the 14,000 acre Santolina land grab development in Albuquerque.