Dear YMCA friends and family,
We are reaching out as the Hispanic Latino Leadership Network. First to establish our employee resource group within the association as a place where we can strategize, activate and mobilize around a shared identity in the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. Second, to use our collective power as an ERG to scale our impact from the frontlines and across borders. This brings us to our current project and initiative that we’ve undertaken to kick-off our HLLN ERG and the work that our committee has been working diligently to come to fruition, an opportunity to support a YMCA in the international movement to address the humanitarian crisis of unaccompanied migrant children at the border.
History:
Since 1991, the Casas YMCA de Menores Migrantes has provided a temporary home to minors who are detained and deported by the US authorities in their attempt to cross the border without an adult companion, facing numerous risks that threaten their human rights.
Need:
The YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles’ Hispanic Latino Leadership Network (HLLN) has been working in collaboration with the Casas YMCA de Menores Migrantes to understand how to better serve the migrant children at the border. The 2018-2019 migrant caravans from Central America made the YMCA of Mexico pivot and serve new population of migrant youth coming from all of Latin America to address the human rights issue. The LA Y’s HLLN has tasked itself with fundraising $50,000 to begin to address capacity and resources needed for the Casas YMCA to manage its operations. Operations across all three border sites (Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Piedras Negras) costs upwards of $260,000 per year. Due to the pandemic, most revenue generating operations that helped support the Casas YMCA were impacted putting the whole operation at risk of shutdown.
Funds raised will be used to directly support the Casas de Menores Migrantes YMCA in the following areas based on direct input and feedback from staff:
- Technology
- Transportation
- Medical Support
- Clothing
- Hygiene
- Facility Restoration
- Social & Emotional Wellbeing
- Immigration Services
Sustained engagement:
The goal of this initiative is answer to the immediacy of the current situation while creating and sustaining future opportunities for collaboration. While the pandemic has created difficult circumstances, it has also fostered new avenues for engagement via technology and it is how we envision engaging and interacting with our partners at the Casas YMCA as we move forward.
How you can support:
Donating to this cause goes a long way to address the needs of our neighbors just south of the border. Donate by clicking on this link any amount can make a difference.
- $50 - provides a month of basic emergency shelter for a migrant youth
- $100 - provides a change of clothes, shoes, and personal hygiene items for a migrant youth
- $250 - provides psychological, legal and health services for a migrant youth
- $500 - covers all the expenses of a one month stay for a migrant youth preparing to present their immigration case assisted by pro-bono lawyers.
Support can also come in the form of spreading the word and raising awareness of our initiative through your networks and via social media. Efforts like these can only succeed by having a multi-pronged approach and if there is an alternative approach to getting to our goal, we want to hear it. We are confident that through our collective effort in moving this initiative forward we can reach our goal and create sustained impact and a framework for our LA Y to continue to make waves internationally and leveraging our skills and talent to make the world a better place.
In solidarity,
Omar Torres
Chairman
Hispanic Latino Leadership Network
