Causes: Education, Health and Mental Well-being, Homelessness and Housing
Project Vida began in 1991 in a small adobe home in the Chamizal neighborhood of south-central El Paso. We wanted to know what people in the neighborhood felt they needed in order to improve their overall quality of life. We have been able to build strong relationships with our community through Community Congresses. These are meetings citizen- driven where participants determine what they need as a community and how they believe that can be achieved. From those events, it was determined that the community wanted to address education; healthcare; affordable housing; gang prevention; homelessness; and later, the needs of small business owners. Project Vida has addressed all of these issues by building affordable low-income rental housing; building clinics and providing high quality, low cost healthcare; creating a homelessness prevention and recovery program; developing a best practice, curriculum-based early childhood education program; offering dynamic after-school enrichment; and providing microenterprise technical assistance and support.
