Our work is guided by our mission, vision, and principles. Our Board, staff and members forged these principles to guide and power our work.
PODER’s mission is to organize with Latinx immigrant families and youth to put into practice people-powered solutions that are locally based, community led and environmentally just. We nurture everyday people’s leadership, regenerate culture, and build community power.
PODER’s vision is a society where everyday people can shape their neighborhoods and economies. We organize with Latinx immigrant families, along with Black, Indigenous and other underinvested communities of color, to cultivate community rooted solutions. These solutions create a society where immigrants have the rights to social, racial, economic, and environmental justice and these are central to the world in which we live.
PODER models not only that “another world is possible” but that other world is now! We co-create a local just transition towards with community stewardship of community land and resources, a solidarity economy, and self-governance rooted in Latinx ancestral land-based cultures and wisdom.
Our Guiding Principles
To achieve PODER’s vision and fulfill our mission we have laid out the following guiding principles that inform our strategic goals and core strategies in carrying out our work.
- El Cambio es Possible/Change is Possible – We believe that everyday people can bring about the change necessary to end oppression and exploitation.
- Otro mundo es posible/Another World is Possible – We believe we can begin imagining and modeling a just transition to a transformed thriving world of community stewardship of community assets, solidarity economics, and self-governance rooted in Latinx ancestral land-based cultures and wisdom.
- Familia y Comunidad/Family and Community — Our organizing and advocacy work is centered on familia whereby we take care of one another as we cultivate the people power to challenge past injustices, collectively change our comunidad for the better, and create the conditions where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.
- Transformación Personal y Social/Personal and Social Transformation — Families, adults, and youth can collectively build the political power and cultural change needed to bring about justice-centered personal and societal transformation.
- Comunidades Saludables/Healthy Communities — We value the right and knowledge of everyday people to create and put into practice community-based solutions for healthy neighborhoods, cities, and society.
- Regeneración Cultural/Cultural Regeneration — Our work is rooted in reclaiming and regenerating cultural practices which rely on traditional wisdom with new thinking and technology.
- Tejiendo un Movimiento para Cambio Transformacional/Weaving a Movement for Transformational Change — We link with local, national and international organizations and movements to forge cultural transformation, systemic change, genuine democratic practice, fulfillment of all people’s fundamental human rights, and environmental & economic justice.
- La Armonía con nuestra Madre Tierra/Harmony with Our Mother Earth — We recognize and honor our interconnectedness with each other and seek to live in harmony with nuestra madre tierra.
