Focus Area: Youth Development
Grant Amount: $10,800
Based in Minneapolis, serves the Twin Cities area and southern Minnesota. Change Inc. is the product of a 2019 merger of two community-based organizations that had collaborated for more than a decade: Guadalupe Alternative Programs and Change Inc., both originally founded to serve underserved individuals and address systemic challenges that prevent Twin Cities families from achieving their full potential. More than 60% of Change’s staff come from many different cultures and speak more than 10 languages.
Grant supports expanding the CIRCLE (Collaborative for Immigrant & Refugee Children’s Leadership & Experience), a program dedicated to healing from cultural trauma and resettlement stress among East African and Latine children and their families in Minneapolis. It is carried out in partnership with 6 Minneapolis public schools with the help of “cultural brokers” who assist with family engagement, promote self-advocacy, and help improve understanding of the family’s specific situation, needs, cultural factors, societal pressures, and injustices. With increased Latine students in the community, the program is adding another full-time Spanish-speaking cultural broker to its team.