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1. Recent Success:
Recent Success: HYA recently received a grant from the Reproductive Rights
and Organizing Fund of the Ms. Foundation for Women, launching our new
project Rise Up Now (RUN). RUN is designed to mobilize the Latino community,
empowering Latinas to take political power, to ensure reproductive services
for underserved youth, and to expand economic, educational, and political
accessibility. HYA was happy to hire long-time community organizer and
youth advocate Denise Salgado as RUN Program Coordinator. At the invitation
of the Ms. Foundation, Denise and Tatyana Salgado, HYA and RUN Youth Board
member, will attend a conference in North Carolina on Strategies for Teen
Pregnancy Prevention, sharing our work with teens in Holyoke.
2. A Big Challenge:
Budget Cuts -- Budget Cuts -- and Budget Cuts. However, adversity can
give rise to renewed commitment and creativity. We're using the challenge
to connect more, to reach out more and to strengthen the ties we have.
3. A Successful Strategy:
We'd say that nurturing our own team and modeling this with our teens,
encouraging them to work as a team, is our greatest strategy. It's not
always what you do, but how you do it that counts. We meet regularly,
talk a lot, ask each other questions, ask each other for advice and feedback,
take risks with each other, talk about hard things, encourage each other,
and we encourage our teens to do the same. Respect is what counts, and
affection. We encourage a feeling of family with our teens and try to
create an atmosphere at HYA where all feel welcome.
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