Padres Unidos and Chapman University Partnership

• In Event: 34.068 - Transforming Relations Through Community-Based Research and Projects: The Paulo Freire Democratic Project

Abstract

Padres Unidos was founded by Patricia Huerta and Blanca Lozoya-Bermude and is a community-based association that empowers community members to learn skills necessary to help themselves while connecting community members to valuable resources. It also provides training and education that help every member of the participating families. Padres Unidos has a six-year working relationship with Chapman University, first through the community worker-training program and currently through a program evaluation. Members from Chapman University and Padres Unidos have entered into an ongoing collaborative research relationship in order to clarify Padres Unidos’ current organizational status and contribute to the academic understanding of community-based non-profits.

The Chapman University and Padres Unidos partnership was founded within Chapman University’s Paulo Freire Democratic Project (PFDP). The PFDP seeks to promote democratic spaces through the Freirean process of collaborative working and activist inter-organizational and interpersonal relationships (Wilson, 2016). Therefore, in the spirit of Freire the members of the organization seek to redefine the traditionally isolated academic with the actionable goal, in part, of creating and promoting community relationships with organizations that have similar goals, values and organizational structures. Consequently, the PFDP seeks to co-exist in community and benefit mutually while enhancing their knowledge systems and familiarity on how universities can be relevant in lives of community.

Authors

• Suzanne SooHoo, Chapman University

• Patricia Rocio Huerta-Meza, Padres Unidos