Deepening Community Relationships During Puerto Rico Pride

At TCC Group, we know how essential it is to support our philanthropic partners in deepening their accountability and trust with communities to sustain lasting impact. Last year, we shared how we designed a Community Listening Tour to accelerate community-driven approaches to ending the HIV epidemic in Puerto Rico, where historical harm has created a deep mistrust of U.S.-based investments.

Earlier this month, in partnership with an HIV-focused pharma company, TCC Group traveled back to Boquerón, Puerto Rico to facilitate a series of events at the largest LGBTQ+ Pride festival in the Caribbean (40,000 community members were in attendance this year). Knowing the critical importance of ongoing community engagement, we continued to deepen relationships, iterate on learnings, and invest in community solutions.

With our client and partner community-based organization Waves Ahead – an organization providing advocacy and direct support services to LGBTQ+ older adults across the island-  TCC Group co-hosted a town hall event bringing attention to the new and persisting challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community in Puerto Rico. Local organizers curated a powerful panel of community leaders and activists who spoke to the history and evolution of Boquerón Pride activities, the new threats posed by the rise of a radicalized political right in both Puerto Rico and the United States, and the need for an intersectional movement that centers the most marginalized community members including older adults, women, people of trans experience, youth, Black communities, and people in the east of the island where resources are scarce. Panelists and audience participants came together for a call to mobilize the vibrant and massive community celebrating in Boquerón that weekend in a broader movement to protect LGBTQ+ and other rights, which are increasingly under attack.

TCC Group staff participated in the event to capture insights directly from community members to share back with our team, our client, and our partners, recognizing that community listening must be ongoing and iterative to ensure our work remains relevant to changing needs and priorities on the ground. The sustained commitment to the people and projects in Boquerón has cultivated trust and ultimately strengthened our ability to show up as collaborators alongside the communities we seek to support.

Below, we catch up with one of our partners in Puerto Rico, Kiaranel Castro-Lebron, from Waves Ahead, to follow up on what has been accomplished by community partners since we spoke.

TCC Group: How are you? Can you share a bit about where we are physically located?

Kiaranel: I’m doing great. I’m happy that we’re meeting today! We’re in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico. This is a very important location, as we’re very close to the Río Piedras Campus of the University of Puerto Rico, which was the first university in Puerto Rico.

TCC Group: Thank you for that. We met two years ago when you, alongside your peers and community, led the community listening sessions. During this time, we were able to gather information about the work being done in community to promote the health and wellbeing of people on this island. What do you remember about that experience? Is there something you took away from it?

Kiaranel: First, it was such a great experience because sometimes we’re just working so much and rushing into things and maybe we don’t get a chance to connect with people that are doing great work related to the work that we do as well. It was nice to meet people such as community leaders and people that are working in other smaller organizations doing community-based work.

Those community listening sessions were a great experience to get in touch with people and to dig into those needs, to those desires, to the feelings we have towards the government, towards organizations, towards the private sector. I think we had very good conversations with a very diverse community. We had young folks that are community leaders that are working tirelessly in their communities, and we also had elders, LGBTQ+ people, and allies. It was a great opportunity to connect with them and to listen to them. I think it’s very important to listen to their experiences and build upon those needs and experiences that they shared.

TCC Group: People were very open about their feelings. While there is so much love and joy for this island, they also expressed a lot of the challenges, such as limited resources, and went into detail about the systems that sometimes don’t allow for people to flourish. I feel like people were able to express themselves because of how great of a facilitator you were. What did you feel?

Kiaranel: Yeah. We have a diverse culture in Puerto Rico. We love Puerto Rico so much, we love our people; we love our island and sometimes we see that politically, people just want to do what benefits some, and not what benefits the communities and the population at-large. We see this with the small organizations who are the ones that really do the work, the hard work. There is a lot of money that the government receives, and it rarely goes to the people that really need it. Those emotions, and those experiences that people shared, are usually held from that sentiment that we really have an honest desire to make things better. We really want to stay here, we want to work from here, we want to create families here. Sometimes the government and those in political power make it so hard for us to work, to be happy, to be able to eat something healthy. Puerto Ricans are very passionate about how we love and how we advocate for the things that we think are just and that are going to let us build the vehicle that we deserve, and that we really desire.

TCC Group: On that note, one of the goals from the listening sessions was to look at how funders could better invest in community-led solutions. Do you think some of those needs from a couple of years ago are being met? Where are there still gaps that funders can fill?

Kiaranel:  I feel like there has been a birth of many more organizations, which means many more people are leading efforts in Puerto Rico, which is great. We have a lot of people to take care of. We also see the challenge that all these organizations are “fighting” for the same funds to support their work. After the pandemic, we have seen that, although there were many opportunities to acquire funds, the need and competition is so big that we’ve had to think more strategically about how we do our work. For me, this looks like better collaboration and partnerships between organizations.

We know the challenges that our communities face. It only makes sense that we work closer together to find solutions. I also think we need to be able to listen to diverse opinions.

TCC Group: I think collaboration is always a guiding light, but it’s often dim. It’s very frustrating. I’m going to pivot a bit. We’re back in Puerto Rico during Pride Month, which is when we were here last. You work at an organization that serves a specific group within the LGBTQ+ community, older LGBTQ+ people, so what does Pride celebration look like for you all this year?

Kiaranel: Pride is a major event here in Puerto Rico because we’re passionate Puerto Ricans and people. We are celebrating from the first of June to the last day in June. This weekend, you’re going to Boquerón which is one of the biggest LGBTQ+ celebrations in the Caribbean. That’s going to be amazing.

For us at Waves Ahead, we focus on LGBTQ+ older adults and we’re celebrating with an event on our block, on the main avenue. We want to do that because we want to dedicate a day to LGBTQ+ older adults in Puerto Rico and the world. Apart from the celebration, we’re raising awareness and making visible different identities, focusing on LGBTQ+ older adults. At our organization, we see several examples of older adults “coming out” and we want to celebrate them.

TCC Group: That sounds like a lot of fun! Is there anything you would like to share that you have not already?

Kiaranel:  I just want to express how important it is that we hold onto relationships with people we meet along the way who are doing lovely work, like we did. What you and your colleagues do is very important because you serve as a connection. You connected us with the people that are doing the work. Your work is so important, and you guide us towards doing great work. I think that these are things that must happen more.

It’s great to have people in other parts of the world that are interested in what’s going on in Puerto Rico and are interested in doing work in Puerto Rico to better the lives of people who live here, especially vulnerable communities. I would advocate for more projects, more initiatives, more collaborations. What we’re doing today, staying in touch and reconnecting and talking about what’s been going on and what can we do. I think it’s very valuable and important not only for us as colleagues but for the communities that we serve.

To learn more about our approach to community engagement, contact us here.