Food and beverages will be available for a donation to continue supporting Homies Unidos Youth Programs, If you cannot attend and will still like to support our efforts. Please make your donation through the DONATE Link
In light of California’s and Los Angeles’ Stay at Home orders because of COVID-19, our office has ceased all on-site operations that are non-essential, including programming, community events, and our annual Central American Youth Leadership Conference. Our team is currently working remotely, maintaining virtual and telephonic communication with the youth and families we serve.
This has challenged us to be creative in serving our community while safeguarding the health and wellness of our staff, who are all resilient individuals passionate about social justice.
Amidst the current crisis, Homies Unidos launched our Community Response Initiative to mitigate some of the most immediate needs of our community. In addition to bi-weekly food distributions in Koreatown, Pico-Union and Westlake, we assemble care packages and deliver them to our youth and families, which include teen parents, single parents, undocumented and mixed-status households, formerly incarcerated individuals, families of currently-incarcerated individuals, and individuals experiencing homeless and food insecurity.
Our community needs us now more than ever and we will continue distributing food and provide care packages to our community members as long as the need is ongoing and alleviates some of the stress and financial strain brought on by the current situation.
By supporting Homies Unidos’ Community Response Initiative you will help us continue to provide food and essential care items to those in our community most in need. To make your online tax-deductible donation, please click here DONATE. To make a donation by check or money order, please mail to: 2105 Beverly Blvd., Suite 203, Los Angeles, CA 90057 and writeCommunity Response Initiative on the memo.
We are also accepting donated goods such as essential care items, including: water bottles, toilet paper and toiletries, hand sanitizer, 99% isopropyl alcohol, aloe vera gel, hand soap, female hygiene products, diapers and infant care items. Please contact our Program Director, Ana Minauri (213) 282-0501 for more information.
Dear Friends of Homies Unidos,
In 2020, the Los Angeles chapter of Homies Unidos will be celebrating our twentieth-year anniversary as a non-profit organization. Over the last twenty years, there have been many times when we have rejoiced in the accomplishments of our members and community leaders, and there have been times when we have felt vulnerable and helpless. Our work was never meant to be easy, but the courage and resilience of our team members deserves recognition.
Through the years, over 1,200 youth, parents, and community members have graduated from our Epiphany Project program, gaining life skills to become self-sufficient and make a positive impact on our community. We walked alongside individuals seeking personal transformation, supporting over 250 community members in the process of completely removing their tattoos through our collaboration with Sunrise Outreach Center. We have advocated tirelessly for the rights of immigrant youth and families, supported the community integration of over 200 unaccompanied and/or immigrant youth fleeing violence in their countries of origin, and worked with youth and families impacted by the nation’s incarceration-to-deportation pipelines.
We have organized over 7,000 youth, parents, educators, policy makers, formerly-incarcerated and currently-incarcerated individuals, and individuals directly impacted by the criminal (in)ustice and immigration systems, by providing political and legislative education workshops to promote civic engagement and community advocacy. We have demonstrated our civic engagement at local public and charter schools, college and university campuses, Los Angeles City Hall, and the California State Capitol, advocating for alternatives to incarceration, community violence intervention and prevention work, and denouncing the human rights abuses inflicted upon arriving immigrants at the Southern Border and deported Central American immigrants in their countries of origin.
The past twenty years have been challenging, but we will continue our efforts as long as youth, parents, and educators continue to seek support from our team. We must continue to advocate for, and with, the youth and families impacted by gang violence, socio-economic violence, gender-based violence, and state violence. We must remember those we have lost to the penal system, walking alongside them in their search for healing and redemption.
As we enter a new decade, we envision creating more programs to provide job training and employment opportunities for youth to develop the skills needed for long-term success. We envision reigniting and expanding our art program as an avenue to healing trauma created by cycles of violence in our community. We envision ongoing development of our transnational partnerships to support individuals impacted by criminalization, incarceration, and deportation. We have much more work to accomplish and know that you will all be there to support our mission.
We are deeply grateful for all of you. We could not have reached this milestone without the generosity and support that was provided by each donation of time, funds, and creative resources that was gracefully and continuously offered to us during the last twenty years. We especially extend our heartfelt gratitude to all our funders who have continued to believe in our mission, during good times and bad.
We hope you can join us for our celebration and benefit on February 20, 2020.
With Much Love,
Alex Sanchez
Homies Unidos
Executive Director
Title: Executive Director
Organization/Business: Homies Unidos
Website: http://homiesunidos.org/
“Alex is on the front lines of the immigration issue, stepping in as a bridge of hope for Central American youth seeking to escape violence and find their future.”
Karen Mack, Nominator
Make a donation to our conference
If you know a youth who will benefit from the resources that will be provided at the conference you can now register at:
More to come… email us if you would like to be a sponsor at asanchez@homiesunidos.org
Central American youth and families from various schools will benefit from the resource fair, health resources, educational workshops and cultural activities provided by organizations and the youth themselves.
We want to thank our sponsors and all who have supported our fund drive.
If you want to be a sponsor for the conference, please contact us for Sponsorship Opportunities.
In solidarity with Central American Refugees (CAR), Homies Unidos is putting together the fourth Central American Youth Leadership Conference. The main purpose will be to ensure that these refugee youth feel welcomed, to celebrate and promote Central American art and culture, provide health resources and on-the-spot referrals, facilitate a legal resources workshop, showcase their stories and experiences, build a supportive community, and create opportunities for positive feedback and self-esteem-building.
The increasing numbers of CAR youth who are crossing the border seeking safety and refuge is not a new phenomenon. The first wave of unaccompanied minors came in the 1980’s fleeing the wars in Central America. Since then, there has been a steady flow, but only recently has there been a dramatic increase of CAR youth fleeing from a violence that has devastated thousands of families and has a direct impact on the city of Los Angeles.
The Department of Homeland Security estimated that in 2014 alone, 68,500 CAR youth entered the United States. Jurisdictions across the U.S. have, at varying levels, worked to prepare and coordinate their legal and service delivery systems to accommodate the waves of children. In 2015, there was a decline by 42% to 39,970. This was mostly because the U.S. requested Mexico to make an effort to stop the flow of immigrants from Central America. In the light of the U.S. elections in 2016, there has been an increase of 20,000 more than in 2015, to 59,692. In the first two months of 2017, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 14,128 unaccompanied refugee minors.Los Angeles County has received 50% (10,741) Unaccompanied Children with local ‘sponsors’ since 2014. This number does not include those who are in detention, in foster care, were not apprehended at the border or those who are not currently in the legal system.
Moreover, with the recent decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and the Central American Minors (CAM) Parole program by the US, it has made this work more pertinent. In rescinding the CAM Parole program, the US government contradicts its efforts to provide access to legal migration for Central Americans, while further criminalizing the youth who have migrated. Through arbitrary designation of gang membership, CAR youth are denied refugee status which allows for their continued detention and ultimately deportation. Even though the 2002 Homeland Security Act mandates that unaccompanied minors have the right to legal representation, many youths still have no legal representation making detention and deportation more likely and put the lives of these minors at jeopardy upon return to their home countries. Our work focuses on providing access to resources for CAR youth to have legal representation as well as health and educational services and community building in one location.
With your support we will be able to:
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Homies Unidos started reaching out to schools and community service providers to refer CAR youth who needs mental health or legal services. As part of a preventive strategy we began implementing the National Compadres Network’s Joven Noble curriculum, character development and immigrant youth intergration program to provide a safe space where they can express themselves with indigenous traditional tools. Even though, with limited resources we have served over 158 youth in four different schools: Santee High, Hawthorne High, Hawkins High and L.A. River. Through this Conference we will address the need to bring youth from other schools where to a place where they can share experiences and be introduced to health and legal services providers among other resources.
CA Youth Conference Application 2018
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LETS MAKE THIS HAPPEN!
Notes for Information:
Event Organizer: Alex Sanchez- asanchez@homiesunidos.org
To reserve a ticket: vsmc@homiesunidos.org
Facebook Event page
Vos Sos Me Canto link to webpage: Vos Sos Mi Canto
Homies Unidos website: www.homiesunidos.org
Participating Collaborating Partner:
Central American Youth Leadership Conference
December 8, 2017
9AM-3:30PM
In solidarity with Central American Refugees (CAR), Homies Unidos is putting together the third Central American Youth Leadership Conference. The main purpose will be to ensure that these refugee youth feel welcomed, to celebrate and promote Central American art and culture, provide health resources and on-the-spot referrals, facilitate a legal resources workshop, showcase their stories and experiences, build a supportive community, and create opportunities for positive feedback and self-esteem-building.
Homies Unidos y la Asociación Salvadorena en Apoyo a Privados de Libertad en el Exterior los invita aprender el impacto de recientes cambios en sentencias para personas encarceladas. Vengan a oír experiencias de gente ex-encarcelada. Elisa Jurado de el salvador contara los recientes resultados éxitos de gente a a ganado su libertad y están integrados en sus comunidades en El Salvador.
Long Island’s gang violence epidemic continues to rage on in Brentwood as another name is added to the growing list of casualties. The skeletal remains of 18-year-old Jose Pena-Hernandez, a known gang member, were recently discovered in the woods behind the abandoned Pilgrim State Psychiatric Center. Many are beginning to worry that there are still more bodies to be found, and authorities remain on high alert as they investigate each murder and their possible connections to the notorious MS-13 gang. Tonight, in an exclusive MetroFocus interview, Suffolk County Police Commissioner Tim Sini gives us an update on the investigations.
Homies Unidos was invited by Council of Thought and Action(COTA) to Hempstead, Long Island in an effort to be proactive to the issues affecting their neighborhood. We cannot be reactive to the violence in our communities, we cannot rely that law enforcement will solved the problem.
Long Island Vv/s MS 13
