C-HER Freedom Dreaming Mini Grants

Not Alone: Cultivating Collective Leadership, Healing, and Joy Among Confident Single Mommas

The term “single mother” implies emotional, financial, and relational isolation. But single mothers are never truly alone. As I explore in Homemade Theory, and as this project demonstrates, single mothers are always part of networks of care, creativity, and connection. The problem is not that single mothers are isolated; it is that our social and economic systems are structured to enforce their isolation and shame their strength.

This project builds an intentional collective, a spiritual, socioemotional, and cultural community where single mothers become organizers of joy, leaders of faith, and authors of new visions for themselves and others. In doing so, Not Alone mounts a radical challenge to hegemonic family norms that define legitimacy by marriage, nuclear structure, and patriarchal oversight.

Embodied Impacts of Executive Orders: Immigrant Children and their Families Living Through Donald Trump’s Second Term

This project actively engages in praxis by fostering a continuous dialogue between theoretical frameworks and the lived experiences of immigrant communities. Our primary goal is to elevate the voices of immigrant families with school-aged children, whose lives are deeply impacted by political shifts, especially in relation to changing immigration policies. By conducting interviews with 5-10 families working with local nonprofits, we seek to understand the real-world effects of policies that have been shaped without input from diverse, demographically representative groups. These policies often fail to reflect the lived realities of migrant families, and this project endeavors to fill that gap by offering a platform to present these impacts within an academic context.

Developing Agency and Voice in Workforce Development: Supporting Transition Age Youth to Co-Produce the Best Practices to Support Persistence in Employment in Sacramento County

As a former executive director, program operator, grant writer, and practitioner in homeless services and workforce development spaces in Sacramento since 1998, I have seen programs, staff, and funding sources come and go in the region. There were many positive aspects of those iterations and dozens of youth became stably housed, having benefited from those programs and services. Still, though, I wondered if there was a more formal and robust set of workforce development supports available to programs and youth, and that there might be an addition or amplification of the outcomes already being achieved. Marshall, et al. say: “Designing and implementing opportunities that increase the incomes of persons who experience homelessness has the potential to mitigate the poverty they experience and may be one part of an overall strategy for preventing and ending homelessness ... Novel employment-based approaches that more effectively target employment and well-being outcomes for a range of sub-groups are needed (2022).”¹

The purpose of this project is to identify an actionable theory of change for TAY experiencing homelessness by co-investigating what has worked, and what does not in workforce development. In doing so, the goal is to create the conditions so that TAY can remediate their circumstances by persistence in employment. By engaging in CPAR, the process of the development of the solution is identified by those most proximate to the challenge. This co-investigation can lead to solutions to the problem of persistence in TAY experiencing homelessness employment. By developing a spirit of inquiry, involving lived experts in the investigatory process, and examining solutions with practitioners, the data collected through the research will lead to an actionable theory of change.

¹Marshall, C. A., Boland, L., Westover, L. A., Goldszmidt, R., Bengall, J., Aryobi, S., . . . Gewurtz, R. (2022). Effectiveness of employment-based interventions for persons experiencing homelessness: A systematic review. Health & Social Care in the Community, 30(6), 2142–2169. doi:10.1111/hsc.13892

Life Essentials for Black Girls

As a McCylmonds alumni, I am personally connected with this project to give back to my community and connect with black girls who are now where I once was. It is my hope to create a safe space where black girls can be themselves and share their experiences to build strength within themselves. Bell Hooks reminded me about the importance of your homeplace, where she could “return to Kentucky and feel again a sense of belonging that I never felt elsewhere, experiencing unbroken ties to the land, to homefolk, to our vernacular speech.” (2009, p. 6) For me, my homeplace is returning to my community and high school that shaped me as an early scholar and helped me define my identity as a black woman from Oakland. I am honored to be able to partner with Brian and Relonda McGhee, who work at McCylmonds and are also alumni, and family members who have played a pivotal role in my life. Connecting with my high school also connects me with my roots in Oakland to give back to my community. Often, McClymonds has been negatively stereotyped, but I know the power and love that this school has given to the students and the Oakland community.

Within this project, my goal is to engage, educate, and empower black girls by nurturing mental, social, and academic growth mindsets. It aims to prepare them for college while affirming their cultural identities, particularly concerning aspects like their hair, appearance, language, and interpersonal relationships. We will be spending time on the values of black hair and how it shapes us as a person. How is black hair seen as a form of power, resistance, or liberation? The concept of black hair and the connection to ancestral practices, which builds cultural confidence. We will better our understanding of black women as a community, to uplift one another and our relationships. Empowerment through our actions and speaking over one another to show our love. We will bring in community members and black women scholars to share their stories and ways of perseverance. We will spend time on academics and how we connect our identity with who we are as scholars. This will include help with personal statements and senior projects. This project aims to disrupt negative stereotypes about black women by offering a comprehensive curriculum that not only celebrates the essence of Black girlhood but also equips students with the necessary tools for success in higher education and beyond.

Dreaming Beyond Borders: Youth Against Deportations and the Creative Retelling of Nuestras Historias

This project engages high school youth in praxis by centering critical consciousness through intentional reflection and education. Through pláticas, youth critically examine the real-life impact of U.S. immigration enforcement policies on their families and communities, connecting concepts such as systemic oppression, resilience, and community power to their own lived experiences. As they engage with undocumented and DACAmented leaders, youth connect these reflections to models of grassroots organizing and advocacy, applying what they learn in practice. By leading community pláticas, listening walks, and circles, youth not only (Un)Document the effects of deportation and family separation, but also highlight community joy and resistance. In doing so, they move from reflection to action—transforming personal and collective narratives into tools for education, empowerment, and systemic change.

Building Critical Multilingual Pedagogies with Latinx Indigeneity at the Center

Friere (1982, p.75) stated:

Within the word we find two dimensions, reflection and action, in such radical interaction that if one is sacrificed, even in part, the other immediately suffers. There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.

 

Alma Flor Ada (1991, p.25) refers to the central role of action through the cyclical process of the word, dialogue, reflection, action, and praxis, stating that:

Participatory research, the dialogues, the mutual collaboration, are all actions. Even the silences of emotion, reflection and thought are harbors of fundamental action.”

This participatory teacher action research project aims to provide a space of praxis for teachers to engage with, utilize, and provide feedback on a curriculum-in-progress that centers the experiences of Latinx indigenous children and families with a focus on the themes of migration, language, culture, and identity. Through the use of critical, multilingual culturally relevant pedagogies, my hope is that teachers will also provide a space of praxis for students. Through the process of learning about Latinx indigeneity and reflecting on their own Latinx identity and/or Latinx indigeneity, including familial, transnational, linguistic and cultural experiences, there is the opportunity and possibility for critical learning, growth, reflection and healing.

Seeding Queer Abolitionist K-12 Educational Futures Hoy y Mañana

For this C-HER Freedom Dreaming Mini-Grant, I am scaling up my work beyond Rainbow Gems in my own classroom by building learning and organizing opportunities at both site and district levels for students, families, staff, and teachers. I am also centering translanguaging in my abolitionist and intersectional teaching and student learning to serve the more complex cultural and linguistic needs of my multilingual and newcomer students. We need parents, families, and caregivers as partners in this work. When students feel seen and supported at school, home and in the community, they gain the bravery and strength to explore, ask questions, and grow. This year, students in my classroom have shared that they have LGBTQIA2S+ family members—a truth that, in many cases, they hadn’t previously voiced. I see how much potential there is when school spaces openly honor LGBTQIA2S+ realities. Yet too often, our school’s “Culture and Climate” conversations focus narrowly on students’ behavior, sidelining deeper conversations about identity, belonging and structural harm. I believe that if our school site knew (or cared to learn) that our students do indeed have family members who are LGBTQIA2S+, (I’d hope) that they would want to hold more space.

We are also pursuing to move this work beyond the club, namely by embedding it into a school-wide climate, family engagement, and teacher learning. We want to see our administration, teachers and families fully invested in queer abolitionist work, not as an “extra” option, but as a core part of how we nurture safety, belonging, and joy in schools. Our collective goal is to shift the culture so that students not only feel supported inside Rainbow Gems, but everywhere on campus. This requires love, courage and consistency from all adults in the building.

ArtAbility Collective

Ruth Asawa School of the Arts (RASOTA) is an audition-based public high school in San Francisco for the arts. Students who attend RASOTA attend academic classes in the mornings and are a part of the arts department in the afternoons. Students in special education who require more than fifty percent of their education to be provided in a special day class (SDC) have been historically under-represented in the arts departments at RASOTA. Students in the special day class setting have not had the same opportunities or been included in an arts department because, before this school year, they were placed at our site and had not auditioned for an arts department. We have faced obstacles with their inclusion in the arts department due to a lack of professional development for our teaching staff and staffing to support students’ needs. Our team has been working this past school year (2024-2025) to create an arts department for students in the special day class track that fosters inclusion and a diverse set of arts curriculum.

The ArtAbility collective strives to be a specialized arts course designed to meet the unique needs of students receiving special education services who benefit from differentiated and hands-on instruction. This inclusive, process-focused department celebrates creativity, self-expression, and skill-building through a wide range of craft and fine art experiences.