Applications opened last week for the Philly Latinx LGBTQ Embajadores. The Embajadores, which translates to “ambassadors,” will be comprised of 10 Philadelphia residents who identify as LGBT and Latinx. The winners announced Dec. 5 will attend the annual Creating Change Conference, which will be held Jan. 18-22 at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown.
The program began as part of Unión-Fuerza, an all-day institute promoting LGBT activism in the Latinx community at the National LGBTQ Task Force’s annual Creating Change conference. Members of the institute asked Latinx individuals who attended previous Creating Change events to create a host committee to support the conference through a local perspective.
The Embajadores will learn about topics such as media, messaging and networking in professional-development workshops prior to attending the conference. After Creating Change, the ambassadors will meet on a monthly basis to hone the skills they learned and strategize around social-justice issues that may arise.
Elicia Gonzales, a member of the host committee, said that after conferences typically end, “everybody is left with this kind of feeling of, ‘Well, that was fun. Now what?’”
The Embajadores program aims to continue the skills learned at Creating Change, she said.
“Given the results of [Donald Trump being elected as president], which really strikes at the heart of what it means to be a queer Latino, we have to build the momentum that has already been building over past years and also support the empowerment of new and emerging leaders so we can react to any sort of injustices that come down the pike and ideally be proactive in ensuring social and racial justice for our community,” Gonzales said.
The group coordinated a GoFundMe page to help pay conference fees for the Embajadores. As of presstime, the page had raised $921 of the $2,000 goal.
Fran Cortes, GALAEI’s Youth Program coordinator and member of the host committee, said he attended Creating Change for the first time earlier this year in Chicago and met many individuals he still networks with today. He wants the Embajadores to have the same experience.
“This resource is a privilege that a lot of individuals are unfortunately unable to get, so we want to give them that opportunity to go out there and work on their own professional skills but also uplift the queer Latino community here in Philadelphia,” Cortes said.
He also noted he is eager for conference attendees to see that Latinx people in Philadelphia are “striving and thriving.”
“We want people coming from out of town to see that we have a vibrant, queer Latino population here in Philadelphia,” Cortes said. “I want to make sure that they see these individuals and then we want local activists to see themselves in these large networking experiences.”
Gonzales said she is excited to see the camaraderie and connectivity among the Embajadores.
“I think it really will become this core group that we can then build on in the future,” Gonzales said.
Interested participants can visit https://goo.gl/forms/FxS6xEgUc8ZYdMSx1 to apply for the Embajadores program. Applicants must be 18 or older.
To contribute to the fundraising effort for Embajadores, visit www.gofundme.com/PhillyLatinxLGBTEmbajadores.