Meet the Latinx Leaders Bringing Community Violence Intervention Programs to Their Communities

Violence intervention programs provide community-informed, comprehensive support to people who are most vulnerable to gun violence and are shown to reduce gunshot woundings and deaths in the communities most impacted by gun violence. They apply a localized approach to gun violence prevention and deploy trusted and credible community members to identify those who are the most vulnerable and work to reduce violence through targeted interventions. 

Since 2019, Everytown Community Safety Fund has granted over $10 million to 117 community-based violence intervention programs implementing evidence-based strategies in 67 cities. We’re excited to support the local, community-based violence intervention programs that have been proven to work. 

Learn more about QLatinx and the National Compadres Network, two Latinx-led community violence prevention and intervention organizations whose work in Latinx communities undoubtedly save lives.

Gabriella Rodriguez with QLatinx

QLatinx is a grassroots community-led organization dedicated to advancing and empowering Central Florida’s LGBTQ+ Latinx community. QLatinx emerged as a response to gun violence, but our mission extends to addressing the critical issues faced by our communities and its role in shaping our formation and community work.

QLatinx’s commitment to racial, social, and gender justice includes advocating for responsible gun policies and safety measures. They actively engage in dialogue, awareness campaigns, and advocacy efforts to address the intersection of gun violence with the LGBTQ+ and Latinx communities. Through community education, they have understood the importance of raising awareness of the impacts of gun violence and empowered local LGBTQ+ leaders to champion change. 

As QLatinx seeks to center and empower the most marginalized members of our community, establish affirming and supportive healing places, build a strong and united community, and work toward a society free of fear, violence and hate. They work to mend the broken fabric of peace within the community and foster a culture of inclusion, where the practices of restorative justice can be implemented to further the healing process and foster the development of leaders from within the most marginalized communities. 

Gabriella’s journey has been a testament to the resilience and personal growth one can experience if they’re invested in, having to navigate through various challenges as a Queer Latinx Womxn of color growing up in the South. Her mission is to reshape narratives, as she has courageously stepped into roles that once felt out of reach, while inspiring others to do the same by embracing their identities and fostering self-love—an ongoing process that requires sharing stories, unlearning preconceptions. 

Learn more about QLatinx.

Héctor Sánchez-Flores with National Compadres Network

NCN’s core belief is that La Cultura Cura (culture heals) creates pathways for marginalized communities to rediscover their cultural medicine to address proximate and historical trauma and ensure that these traumas are not passed on to the next generations, especially in the manifestation of violence in our homes and Community.

For over 35 years, the National Compadres Network (NCN) has been a leading voice advocating for Latinx communities and other communities of color that have been marginalized and seen through an external gaze that only recognizes deficits. NCN believes that our communities can and have created solutions to pressing problems through an asset-based lens that identifies values and traditions that are rooted in our Indigeneity.

NCN’s culturally-rooted and healing-centered philosophy has guided community efforts to support transformational healing of people who have experienced trauma, recognizing that rooted people have always employed healing practices.

Since its inception, NCN has provided a yearly three-day Retiro (retreat) rooted in Indigenous tradition that re-affirms and re-charges the spirit. Anchored by a four-stage “Círculo” process, the circle process is essential to a healing process that facilitates deeper relationships beginning with the acknowledgment of the experiences of the individual, and ending with working toward culturally rooted solutions. 

The Retiro encourages acceptance, truth-telling, heart-to-heart sharing and ultimately a sense of deep interconnectedness. It roots our work in the intimacy of sacredness, a continuum of healing, engendering learning, mutual understanding, interconnected kinship, and building a movement of collective action towards transformative change.

Learn more about the National Compadres Network.

Want to learn more about the Community Violence Intervention Programs that the Everytown Community Safety Fund supports? Learn more here.