QLatinx solicited the Hispanic Federation Advance Change Together Grant fund to address the continued vital need for capacity building and community organizing for and by our queer latinx community in Central Florida. Our work supports and empowered community members at the intersection of LGBTQ and Latinx identities as these were the predominantly targeted communities of the Pulse tragedy.
Our communities continue to be disproportionately impacted by gender-based violence, mental health concerns, reduced access to sexual and reproductive health services, and economic and work-related concerns—that disproportionately affected women during the pandemic and beyond. In the south we are impacted by bills, and legislation intentionally aimed at silencing the voice of our communities.
QLatinx recognizes that there is no other existing space for Latinx LGBTQ communities of color to gather, strategize and advocate for one another in the Central Florida area. QLatinx has continued to forge an alliance of institutional stakeholders and service providers in Central Florida and nationwide to ensure adequate and culturally competent support/ services and programming for bilingual and monolingual foreign-born families and kin of those affected by the tragedy that occurred at the Pulse Nightclub.QLatinx has understood the more significant impact of PULSE as those that have worked and supported our communities affected. QLatinx has understood that healing and the effects of the PULSE tragedy will be reflected in every facet of our work within the community and organizational spaces.
The 6-year remembrance placed a significant moment for many within our community that there has been and still is much work to do. When we view healing, it’s crucial to ensure we are at the table on what healing looks like to nuestrx and honor our indigenous roots and culture. We accomplished this by continuously going back and listening to the communities most marginalized by hosting various listening sessions and short surveys done through 1 on 1 conversation in 2022. Through these conversations, we understood the need for various spaces and throughout the month of June we hosted several healing sessions for our community in a variety of ways from on-demand and live bilingual yoga and meditation sessions online and in-person. We host annual events like Keep Healing Orlando,which in it 2nd year has reaching over 300 people or our inaugural Latinx Culture and Health Festival, these spaces are a sample of multidisciplinary events offering community services and at the same time open space for the enjoyment of the individuals affected by the Pulse, to further promoting the importance of mental health and its care in our community through knowledge sharing supports, and information. We believe we must heal internally amongst our LGBTQ Leaders of color, to be able to continue this vital work; in recognizing this, we invited an educator and end of life doula to speak to the team and other organization leaders to an in-depth conversation on how vicarious trauma shows up in black and brown bodies and the importance to take a moment to pause, to acknowledge not only the impact of the tragedy over our professional and personal lives but to identify all the work that has been done through many efforts and initiatives that have supported survivors and the community over the past six years.
