$25,000 / 2018
https://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 Latinx 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. Over the last grant period, SWOP’s Youth Rights Initiative continued to implement ethnic studies and anti-racism policies throughout the district with allies. SWOP led ethnic studies teacher training and helped compel school board members to complete anti-racism training. SWOP’s Healthy Kids-Healthy Economy Initiative, aimed at buying produce locally for school lunches, secured $425K in legislation support last year. Over the next year SWOP will organize to develop and implement school policies to improve wellness in schools, reduce harsh discipline practices and to fight to scale back school privatization.