About Us
Founded in 2011 by the Alianza Poder network of community-based sister organizations, the CAPACES Leadership Institute (CLI) is a culturally-specific 501(c)(3) non-profit based in the mid-Willamette Valley, Oregon’s agricultural heartland and the center of a large migrant farmworker community.
While our comunidades are in a constant state of survival and trying to get by, this is not our destination and why the idea of Capaces came to fruition. Capaces was created to serve as a nucleus to defend, sustain, and expand Oregon’s immigrant and farmworker movement. Capaces has become a space for our comunidades to dive into their deep and rich well of history and identities—La Casa de La Abuela, an entry point to strengthen our individual and collective capacity to engage in the wider socio-political world, and a rest area for pause, rejuvenecimiento, reflexión, convivio, creatividad, e innovación.
Our Mission:
To strengthen the wellness, capacity, and political consciousness of leaders, organizations, networks, and communities to eliminate social disparities.
Our Values:
Wholistic wellness—for all of life, fluidity—move like water, Tequio—communal labor for the common good, and el Espiritu de La Abuela—the spirit of the grandmother is always with us.
Our Vision:
Equilibrium, harmony, prosperity, and abundance for our communities and our planet while honoring our history, our present, and future generations.
Our Theory of Change:
The CLI’s programs are designed to create impact on five levels:
The individual participating
The organization/group these leaders work in
The movement/network they are a part of
The institutions and systems that impact our community
Ultimately the community these leaders/organizations/movements work in. Our programs provide leadership development pathways through a variety of experiences, each adding value to all four levels, utilizing a Popular Education model. This approach is premised on the understanding that committed participants bring valuable knowledge and experience needed for crucial change efforts.
Who we serve & work with:
Capaces provides educational and leadership development programming to over 2,500 Latin/e/o/a/x, immigrant, Indigena, Afrodescendiente, and farmworker children, youth, adults, and elders in rural and urban communities of the Mid-Willamette Valley (Marion, Polk, Yamhill). This region is home to over 120,000 people from our communities (approximately 20% of Oregon’s total Latino population). This includes recent migrants, second, and third generations .
We also serve our communities statewide through our many collaborative efforts. Capaces houses and serves multiple networks/collaboratives including: Alianza Poder Network, the Latinx Community Wealth Building Network (LCWB), and the Oregon DACA Coalition.
JUNTOS SOMOS CAPACES!