(upbeat music) - And welcome to this edition of our community connection.

Our theme, "Programming For Latinx," here in West Michigan.

So we bring in our esteemed guests.

Andrea Inosituria founder of Puertas Abiertas.

Andrea, looking forward to speaking with you, hello to you.

- Hey.

- Carlo Sanchez, Director of Latino Business and Economic Development Center at Ferris State University, Carlos, good day to you.

- Hey Shelly.

- Guillermo Cisneros, CEO, West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce doing great things in our community.

Hi to you Guillermo.

- Hi, Shelly.

- All right, three of the best.

Here we go.

Talking all things what you know and what you are proud of.

Let me begin with you, Carlos if you would talk a little bit about, well, your role and your good organization.

- Thank you, Shelly.

Yes, the center for Latino Business and Economic Development Center.

what we do is we develop leaders and entrepreneurs in the Latinx community.

That's what we do.

We've been doing a leadership program that is Latino-led, Latino centered for about 10 years.

Actually we are celebrating our tenth-year anniversary this year.

Over 150 Latinos and Latinas have gone through our program.

And the second program that is under our roof is INprende, which is an entrepreneurship program in Spanish also for the Latino community.

And that program sits at the very very beginning of the entrepreneurial and the ecosystem or journey where we work with individuals that have an idea of a business and we help them put that in concrete and launch those ideas.

That's what we do at Ferris.

- Great, we'll get into the weeds in a minute.

Andrea, would you introduce us to Puertas Abiertas?

- Yeah.

I'm the founder and Deputy Director of Puertas Abiertas.

We created this organization in 2019 and it was to support the Latino woman against violence.

We have served more than 350 ladies and since 2019, we have a group of men victim of domestic abuse and we also have more than 600 children.

We see all domestic violence including financial, sexual abuse, psychological and also trafficking.

We have human trafficking, we have work trafficking and we recently started with work discrimination.

- Thank you for that.

Yes, we'll talk more about the details.

Guillermo, could you share your good work with the chamber please?

- Absolutely Shelly.

I'm Guillermo Cisneros, president and CEO of the West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

The Hispanic Chamber, Shelly, started back in 2003.

So we are a 19 year old organization and growing significantly in the last, you know, five years.

Our mission is to increase economic advancement of Latinx owned businesses and support the professional growth of Latinos in West Michigan.

So we have been very intentional in creating programming that supports the Latino business community and also the next generation of Latinos.

Through our programming, we have been able to help in the last four years, over 200 businesses in West Michigan and we have served over 400 Latino college students since 2019.

So we continue to develop our programming, we are constantly looking at the gaps that this community has regarding economic development and talent development.

So our goal is to continue to create new programs that we can fill, you know, the gaps.

- Yes, and Guillermo are you membership centered?

- We're a membership based organization Along with our programs that are making an impact in the community, we have services for our members.

We have monthly membership meetings that are called 'Connector,' and our goal is to make sure that everyone is connected in this community.

We have those meetings every third Thursday of the month, at different organizations and around West Michigan.

So that's one of the services we offer.

We also offer business workshops in Spanish, you know, for our Latino businesses.

And we also celebrate the successes of the Latino businesses through annual awards gala that has become an incredible diverse event in West Michigan.

We had over 760 attendees back in 2019, you know, and 54% of those attendees were women, and 49% were people of color.

I'm proud to say that's one of the most diverse events we have in West Michigan.

And that celebrates the Latino community.

- Is there a party planned for 2022?

- There is one, yes.

- Yeah.

- Good, hang on to that, we'll get the specifics.

Let me go back to you, Carlos.

Talk to me more about, well, how to get involved, how to be part of, it looks like your 2022, is it called leaderes, leaders?

- Leaders, that's right.

- Leaders.

- Yes .

Yes.

Tell me what you're taking your guests through and who is eligible.

Yes.

- Yes.

The program is for Latino, Latina professionals in West Michigan.

We actually just launched a second offering of the program on the Lake Shore, the area of Holland Seal and Grand Haven and Muskegon.

So we're running two consecutive programming at the same time.

Last Thursday, we concluded with the graduation, our offering in Grand Rapids, and we will start again next October.

And what we do is, like I said before, we develop leaders in West Michigan.

So we teach them design thinking and we present them with a challenge in the community, so they can learn hands-on the process of design thinking.

We also teach the them cultural intelligence.

We look at leadership itself, not from the standpoint of Latino leadership, but we use Maxwell's five levels of leadership to teach them about the subject.

Then towards the end, we ask the question to them, what are you prepared to do?

Now that we taught you all these things, how are you going to pay it forward to our community?

How are you gonna give back?

Get engaged in the community, mostly in a civic way.

So either serve on boards committees, including run for office.

We've been lucky that one of our graduates ran for office in Holland, and she is now a judge Juanita Bocanegra.

That's what we do during six months of programming.

- Hmm, yes.

And so your class just graduated, you say?

- Correct, the class just graduated, the Grand Rapids class graduated and the Lake Shore class, the very first Lake Shore class will graduate this coming Thursday.

- Hmm, yes.

So professional development community and civic engagement is- - That's correct.

- Is appropriate.

And it's through Ferris State University, yes?

- That's right, yeah.

We are very thankful that philanthropists support us as well as corporate sponsors have looked at the need for Latinos to to develop professionally.

Because, you know, the more professionally developed are the Latino Latinas in West Michigan, the better it is for their incorporation, and of course for the government nonprofits and in general entire community.

We're very lucky that we continue to have the support, of again, the philanthropic community and corporate.

- Hmm, yes.

Thank you for that.

Back to you, Andrea, would you take us back to the founding?

Why your organization, which I think is a newer organization, needs to exist?

- Well, yeah, it's new.

In 2018, we heard about the suicides of three members of the Hispanic community, and one femicide, she was killed by her husband.

And we said, this needs to stop.

Beside that, I've been working for five years for our circle here in one of the biggest schools in the Hispanic community in Grand Rapids, and the more clients they have, because they sit with friends, it was due to suicidal ideation and due to domestic violence at home.

So it was a need and that's why this organization started.

The lack of resources was my first concern, and that was the reason these Hispanic members commit suicide, because they didn't find the resources.

Through the years, I have been learning, its not that we don't have resources for them, it was the organization.

We needed an organization to be able to connect all these resources, and that's what we have been doing.

I mean, we have saved so many lives, we have so many clients that come to us, we are seeing three, four intakes every week.

I mean, we continue to grow.

There is a huge need here in Kent county, in the city of Grand Rapids and we don't see it and it's there.

I mean, I've been working with the children, I see how they're suffering, I see the suffering of the ladies.

We started the first time was 13 ladies with a pilot program, and right now we have more than 350.

I mean, it's been growing.

it's only for January, 2019.

I mean, this is an extreme need right now, and you can see the change in the children.

I mean, these children are citizens of United States and they are growing in a cycle, domestic abuse cycle, which is going to be transferred to next generations.

And that's why we are working on this to break the cycle, to teach them different ways of communicating, respect towards the adults or the parents, to the authorities.

So it was a need and we are being able to help them to help the community.

But like I said, we are growing way too fast.

I mean, it's amazing for us because they trust us, the Hispanic community trusts us, and trust is so difficult to get, you know.

When you have the trust and you have an organization that's able to connect all the resources that we had, I mean, they just need an opportunity.

That's all what Hispanic community needs.

- Andrea, do you have a physical presence for one who may need safety to leave a particular situation?

Are you to that point yet?

- No, we are...

I mean, our dream is to have a shelter, a shelter only for the Latino community.

We have some cultural barriers when it's about working with other shelters.

We work with YWCA, we work as a haven, they have been amazing providing their shelter for us and other connections.

We have an organization who provide hotels, sometimes we also provide hotel for our clients.

But what we have seen is the trust, the culture, the cook even is interesting.

Because, you know, people who live here, were born here, they like fast food and they pass, you know, over the day in the shelter and everything is good, but our people need to cook.

They love the food, you know, and sometimes they're the persons who are cooking at the shelters because they like that.

So little details make this horrible process of being taken out of their house for safety more comfortable.

So that's why our dream is to have our own shelter.

- Great.

Thank you for that.

Guillermo can you stay on the topic before I go into programs and I may need to address this with you of the important of cultural trust, if I can use that term, Guillermo.

- Absolutely, Shelly.

And this is something that we identify, you know, as one of the most most important pieces, you know, within our community, you know.

When organizations, you know, approach our community, or get funding to develop programming without knowing our community, without having that trust, no, it doesn't work Shelly.

You know, and we have seen it.

Our Latino community has been in Grand Rapids since the beginning of the 1900s.

You know, the first Latinos that came, you know, came to work in manufacturing, in agriculture.

You know, they established in Granville avenue and a hundred years forward, you know, levels of poverty in our community continue to increase in the Latino community.

Education is not growing.

We are at 25% attainment rate for college in Michigan, you know, for Latinos, you know.

Businesses, you know, don't thrive.

There is no access to capital, you know, there is no creation of wealth within the Latino business community.

So that's why, you know, it is important for organizations like The West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to exist because we understand all of those barriers.

We understand our culture, we know our own struggles and the Latino business owners trust us when we're speaking Spanish with them, you know.

And we create, you know, immediate connections.

You know, this organization, Shelly, you know, was conceived at the beginning of 80s, you know.

We have data, we have done some research and there were Latinos in 1981 trying to start a West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce because they weren't finding any resources, you know, throughout the community to support Latino businesses.

They couldn't.

Another group of Latinos tried to start again in 1992, 10 years after, they couldn't.

And finally, The West Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that we have right now was incorporated in 2003.

You know, it took us 40 years to get where we are at, you know, and we are just a 19 year organization making sure that the resources come to our community, and they can use those resources to thrive.

So that's, you know, that's the advocacy piece that we have.

We wanna make sure that there is an equitable distribution of the resources throughout West Michigan, that our community hasn't seen in a hundred years.

- Thank you for that, Guillermo.

Carlos, what do you add to this on this topic?

- I totally agree with Guillermo.

I think organizations like the Hispanic Center, the Hispanic Chamber and others have worked for a number of years in developing that trust with the community.

I used to be the director of the Hispanic Chamber, I used to be the director of the Hispanic center, and trust is only gained by being with people right where they are speaking their language, eating their food.

And we are the ones that are best equipped to help to support the work with those communities.

Again, because we are from that community, whether we were born here or not, we are from that community.

My work is to develop more of those individuals such as Guillermo, Andrea.

So in the numbers, we will find more ability to impact positively our community.

Whether we work in corporate or we work in nonprofit, for profit, government, et cetera.

When people walk into the doors of an organization and they see people that look like us or speak their language, the curve of trust significantly reduces, you still have to gain that trust, but it significantly reduces that gap.

- Yep.

And Carlos, staying with you, your participants, your leaders are introduced to concepts for innovation strategies, as you mentioned the human centered design, talk to me more about the tools that you send your entrepreneurs off with date one of graduation.

- One of the main tools that they receive is, on every single session that we have, we meet on a Saturday for a whole day, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

And at the end of the day, we urge them to develop three to five smart goals for each of the session.

On top of the smart goals, they are tasked to find within their group, within their teams, an accountability partner.

And of course, write those goals.

At the end of six months, what they find is that they have maybe 10, 12 smart goals.

But as I tell them, if everything is a priority nothing is a priority.

And the very last session we help them to put really priority on three to no more than five smart goals that they themselves have written, and they have an accountability partner.

And they're of course, you know, they're timebound and at the end of the program, they have a printed roadmap for the next six, 12 months, three years, et cetera, whatever they'll decide to do.

That is gonna help them rather than just, you know, after the graduation they're like, well, this group was fun.

I have nothing really.

Aside from a couple of notes, they have a written professional plan, development plan for them.

- Ready to go.

Andrea, take me through, I guess a scenario of how to accomplish that dream.

Will there need to be a structure to make that happen?

What is your next step, and what will you ask of your community?

- Our community, the support, there is a big need.

We have a very strong connection with the councilors and also with the (indistinct).

He was saying the population here in Kent County is more than 150,000 Guatemalans.

So we have so many Hispanic Latinos.

It'd need a chance, an opportunity.

I think, in the organization where we get the trust, because we follow through.

We do what we say we are going to do.

If we have a client, and I know we kinda go out a little bit of your question but, if we have a client who needs to leave their home, it's so difficult.

Because they see this huge world, where people speak a different language, where people have a different culture, and they prefer to stay in that situation, and not look for another opportunity for a safe place.

So if we provide them that restructure follow through, we are there for you, we are going to help you, leave the situation if you want because it's their choice.

We never criticize, we never touch anybody, we do what they want to do.

And I think that is our difference, the organization that we created.

I founded this organization based on what the community need, not what I wanted to give to them.

I asked them, what do you need?

And that's how we started creating.

We have connected with more than 36 different organizations providing English classes, computer classes, construction.

I mean, it's unbelievable how working together.

So the dream is to continue with this organization, make it stronger because it's needed and connect every single part and make a follow through, safety, basic needs.

Becoming independent man, woman, who doesn't gonna need that person to pay the bills.

- Yes, yes.

- no, that's all I said.

I mean, and continue with this structure and continue making them, developing their skills.

So that is my dream, for everybody to become individual.

- Thank you for that dreams come true.

Andrea Inosituria, how do we find out more information about your organization?

- We have our website, it's www.puertasabiertasgr.org.

We have a phone number with 24 hours, seven days a week, for crisis.

It's 616-690-8267.

And we're on Facebook, we're in Twitter, We're everywhere.

- Yes.

- And we need the community, we need your support, help us to create a safety environment for the Latino community.

- Yes, thank you for that.

Carlos Sanchez, what do you leave us with?

- If someone that is a senior probably that's watching, this show right now, and they can think of a family member or a staff person within an organization, that is thinking, you know, that person could use this program, have them connect with us.

The website is leaderes.ferris.edu And they can look at the program right there and come and talk to us because we've graduated 150 Latinx professionals right now.

We know that we can do 300 plus.

So just connect with us.

- Great, ask for Carlos, he's a good man.

- That's right.

- Thank you very much.

All right.

I'll give you the finale, Guillermo Cisneros maybe perhaps share a date of your future event and then certainly how do we find out more information about your good work.

- Absolutely, Shelly.

So we're targeting October for our annual awards gala.

We're just finalizing the exact date.

You know, we are very, very excited to bring this event back, you know, to our community to celebrate the successes of the Latino businesses.

We are also targeting August, 27 for Latino Health 5k, that we have had for many years, you know, to help our Latino community get out.

We're also gonna have our golf outing in July, you know, and lots of programming happening throughout the year as well, you know, to support Latino businesses and Latino college students.

So we are loving how 2022 is starting, with many opportunities and just continuing our work, you know, it's very important, you know, for our community.

- Hmm, yes.

And proud of Grand Rapids, love, your background there.

How do we find out more about the chamber please?

- Yes, on our website, westmihcc.org, also through Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, you can find us there.

- Great.

Well, I only get the best and I bet you'll line up at the front of that line that 5k , and our goal is to catch Guillermo, correct?

- Absolutely.

- All right.

Well, Carlos, Andrea and I will be there to do just that.

Thank you all for this important conversation on how your organization is, well, extremely important to our West Michigan.

Take care to you.

- Thank you Shelly.

- See you around.

- Take care.

- And take care to you.

Gracias for your watching our community connection, I'm Shelly Irwin.

- [Announcer] If your organization would like to be considered for a community connection segment, or you have an event you would like to be added to our community calendar, email your information to irwinsh@gvsu.edu.

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