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Thank You Southwest Airlines!

HIP can’t do the work that we are called to do without the support of key partners. We are lucky, deeply humbled and grateful for our partnership with Southwest Airlines. Southwest’s support has helped us expand our leadership work with our HIP Líderes. Our Latinx Líderes Program, now in its fourth year, provides targeted leadership training to mid-career social sector leaders through in-person convenings, community-of-practice sessions, and regional working groups. HIP’s racial equity-centered curriculum touches on systemic racism; physical, mental and spiritual health; cultivating allies, and decision making within their organization, field, and/or sector. Our 2019 cohort, selected through a competitive process and officially announced in June, is HIP’s fourth cohort to date and includes 31 mid-career nonprofit and philanthropic leaders from across the U.S., including Puerto Rico, and one leader from Mexico. This Líderes cohort is based around a regional model, where participants are organized into cohorts based on geographic location. To build the relationships between participants, HIP convened all 31 Líderes in Albuquerque, NM on August 13 – 16th for an opening retreat—catalyzing new relationships and conversations to carry through for the rest of the program. At the retreat, participants were also able to build a collective agenda, develop an awareness of each other’s work, and identify what skills they hope to build, which will inform HIP’s Community-of-Practice sessions moving forward. Thanks to the generous support of Southwest, we were able to provide free flight vouchers to nine Líderes who otherwise may not have been able to attend to cover the cost of travel. Having all the Líderes in-person is a tremendous and powerful experience that fuels us to continue growing Latinx professionals. The most rewarding part of the work so far has been witnessing the personal impact of the opening retreat on the Líderes participants. None of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for the support of Southwest. HIP had each of the nine Líderes who received a Southwest voucher in order to participate in the opening retreat reflect on its impact on their experience. Ernesto Espin, Open Society Foundation Jessica Omilani Alarcon, LatiNegras Stephanie Martinez, GCIR Raymundo Garcia, Lead for America José Eduardo Vera, Southwest Immigrant Project Kristell Caballero Saucedo, Borealis Foundation Juan Galeano, The Cleveland Foundation Janet Arias Martinez, Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Veronica Martinez, Planned Parenthood Arizona