Urban Semillas is a social conscientious, reconnaissance and outreach, community-based, watershed driven organization.
Our overarching goal is; to educate underserved and monolingual (Spanish-speaking) communities about watershed and social justice issues; and provide these with community-building skills, thus empowering them to participate in local and citywide planning as well as playing an active role in city, state and nationwide policies.
Our Philosophy on outreach and capacity-building Tools:
Consider a hammer in a carpenter’s toolbox. The carpenter relies on a hammer to do many things, but it performs some tasks, such as pounding nails, better than others, such as pounding screws. The hammer is useful in many contexts: building a home, fixing a table or hanging pictures. However, the hammer is simply a device; it is neither an approach nor a methodology. How well the hammer is used and the quality of the construction, depend almost entirely on the judgment, skill and planning of the carpenter wielding it. (Participatory Tools for Communities, 2006).
Our approach takes a non-traditional, social paradigm when advocating on environmental issues. Through community reconnaissance and partnerships, we gain a true grasp and understanding of the socio-cultural topography of communities and we incorporate local existing community issues into our approach.
Most importantly, we can make environmental issues relevant to our communities and we are able to incorporate these into people’s daily cultural landscape – “haciendo la conexión”, making the connection.
We specialize in community reconnaissance and outreach; watershed-based and community-specific presentations; constituency building & stakeholder education and event planning.
