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PODER, a Tides Center project since 1992, is a grassroots environmental justice organization based in San Francisco's Mission District. PODER's mission is to organize with Latino immigrant families to work on local solutions to issues facing low income communities and communities of color. PODER believes that the solutions to community problems depend on the active participation of all people in decision-making processes. Improvements to our neighborhood must be made through collective social action to bring about social, economic and environmental justice.
Using a variety of different strategies, including direct action, grassroots advocacy, leadership development and civic engagement, PODER has been able to achieve important victories for Latino immigrant families and other low-income communities of color in the Mission District and in San Francisco. These accomplishments have brought about policies that protect public health as well as tangible community wins that lead to more affordable housing, open space and cleaner air in our neighborhoods.
Over the past eight years Latino immigrant youth from the Mission and Chinese immigrant youth from Chinatown have gotten together to learn how to organize our communities. Through the Common Roots program, PODER and the Chinese Progressive Association have developed a model for youth leadership development and cross-cultural communication, organizing skills development and collaboration of activities amongst two neighborhood-based groups working in San Francisco's low-income communities of color.
In 2004, PODER, along with the Chinese Progressive Association and the Environmental Law & Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University, launched this initiative to empower the growing number of low-income Asian and Latino communities in Southeast San Francisco to address disproportionate environmental health risks and improve their access to and participation in health and environmental programs and policy-making. With a goal of strengthening cross-cultural solidarity and collaboration, the Initiative focuses on leadership development and building the communities' capacity to collectively advocate for and achieve health and environmental justice.
