You might be wondering how we plan to incorporate our project into the Xuchil team’s current production process. Well, wonder no more! Richard Hanson, a fellow Longhorn and our contact at the Oaxacan nonprofit Tejiendo Alianzas, has been working tirelessly all year to help ensure that our transition from UT to Suchilquitongo is efficient, productive, and successful. By coordinating communication and logistical planning between us and the Xuchil team, this entire project would not be possible without Richard’s dedication to the partnership between PUC and Tejiendo Alianzas.
Question: Give us a little information into your background please
Richard: I received a BA in English and Spanish language and literature and later two Masters in Public Administration and Latin American Studies, with a focus on alternative education models, at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs and Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies. As a Texas native, my interests in culture diversity, immigrant experiences, and social justice led me toward education projects and public policy; first as an ESL instructor and youth mentor, later as a legislative aid for a Texas congressman. Then as a researcher and program evaluator for two Brazilian nonprofits, I focused on human rights violations and education programs for juvenile offenders, inspiring my Master’s thesis: “An Evaluation of Intervention Models for Juvenile Offenders: From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Giddings, Texas.” I first arrived to Oaxaca in 2007 as a tourist, yet the unique context quickly inspired a new career. Through the Trilingual Project, I connected youth from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds to explore history, identity, and future aspirations through various technologies. Once hired by the ORB Foundation, I directed the ISITIA youth program and then their pilot SEED-Mexico program and creating sustainable employment in rural areas through projects that reflected collective goals. Co-founding the non-profit Tejiendo Alianzas (TA) reflects the culmination of experience and community network building in marginalized rural indigenous municipalities and villages over the last ten years.
Question: What is your job and how did you get involved in it?
Richard: The origins of Tejiendo Alianzas began when Sarahi Garcia and I, after nearly 4 years of working for the ORB Foundation, realized our commitment to sustainable development and our capacity to scale impact in rural indigenous Mexican communities required an independent legal entity and a reevaluation of “partnerships,” placing local residents on equal footing with external stakeholders. The name “Tejiendo Alianzas,” or “Weaving Relationships,” reflects a commitment to patiently cultivating trust with the communities we serve, expanding the TA family through mutual interests in improving local quality of life, with compassion and human connection. The legal constitution of TA represents a milestone in a path started years ago. Our direct knowledge of and work experience in rural indigenous communities in México (me as founder of the Trilingual Project and Sarahi as a Oaxacan indigenous Zapotec woman and artisan in her family’s sandal and shoe business) prepared us for leading SEED-México and ISITIA. Managing these programs enabled us to visualize a development model more focused on leveraging existing networks to create value, directly involving universities in project incubation, more clearly identifying market needs before launching micro businesses, and training project participants in the production and commercialization of their products.
Question: How did you work to form a strong, reliable relationship with the community in Santiago Suchilquitongo?
Richard: Successful community partnerships result from slowly and patiently cultivating trust while sharing similar goals and working side-by-side with local residents. In 2013, we were invited by the organization Amigos de las Americas to create a youth educational program in Suchilquitongo. As a result we began meeting various local leaders and residents whose appreciative yet critical eye for social impact work led us to consider how we might continue collaborating on new projects, such as the ISITIA youth program developed by our former employer, the ORB Foundation. We then initiated that program (which was evaluated positively) and considered yet another initiative to run in the community. Thus we began the SEED Mexico program which supported the launch of the mesquite project. And now Tejiendo Alianzas reflects the new phase of our work, incubating local projects and exploring new community development models.
Question: How did TA get involved with PUC?
Richard: Since finishing my undergraduate and then my graduate studies at UT, I’ve always wanted to find a way of giving back and collaborating with the university. I made my first pitch to the Latin American Studies and Linguistics departments to connect students to the Trilingual Department but we couldn’t quite connect the dots in a satisfactory way. Then I continued talking to Helena Wilkins, who was my study abroad advisor when I was 22 years-old and on my way to Spain, about our work for the ORB Foundation (now finally Tejiendo Alianzas) always had the questionsa--“How can we create meaningful experiences for students to apply their knowledge and create an impact? How can they do this while working alongside Oaxacans to tackle local challenges and catalyze the many opportunities for diverse projects? How can we make that sustainable and deemed successful by local participants?” It was in 2017 when I heard of the PUC program and the stars seemed to finally align. And now, in fact, our partnerships are expanding to other schools at UT, such as the McComb’s School of Business and hopefully very soon, the School of Social Work and Institute for Latin American Studies.
Question: What do y’all hope to get out of this year’s project?
Richard: A number of things. I would like this year to further demonstrate that our student-community model truly delivers an impact on various fronts. For example, I am hoping that cultural divides can again be crossed and lead to friendships despite the diverse differences among students and community members. We, of course, would like the design and engineering challenges to be resolved and collaboratively constructed. Or at the very least, that we have the ideas and tools to continue revising the work in a following phase. If we can produce mesquite flour more rapidly, efficiently, and with little or no loss of raw material, that will allow the team to lower the price of their products, make them more competitive in the market, and in turn benefit their families with increased income.
Question: What are your personal plans/goals for the future of TA and Suchilquintongo’s work together?
Richard: When we refer to “sustainable community development” in our model, we mean that the success of productive and commercial projects leads to greater local income which can partially sponsor new projects in the community with Tejiendo Alianzas co-fundraising at their side. My goal is to collaborate with local residents to create a system of community businesses that together lead to tremendous social, cultural, and economic impact. We are also considering the possibility of launching a Rural Innovation Center in Suchilquitongo, following the D-Lab model from MIT, which could offer various kinds of capacity-building workshops and resources for local residents to create more solutions and opportunities of their own through technologies they design and construct themselves. That inevitably means more projects and potential community businesses that in turn open up many new possibilities for students to come down and join the movement.
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