What does true accompaniment mean?
And how does it change us when we are really accompanied… not managed, not “helped,” but truly seen, trusted, and walked alongside?
Last Thursday, April 09th, I had the honor of attending the showcase of the ALFA and MIEL cooperatives, two inspiring groups of women promotoras from Napa and Sonoma. These are women deeply rooted in their communities. Women who have spent years accompanying others: holding stories, resilience, and dreams with care and strength.
Seeing them arrive with their families to celebrate touched me deeply. Joyful. Deserved. Powerful.
Latino Community Foundation has played a visionary role in supporting the organizations behind these cooperatives. And Prospera has been part of this journey and continues to be walking alongside these women as they step into their economic leadership.
This experience made me reflect deeply on accompaniment.
Because accompaniment is not neutral. It can either reproduce power hierarchies or it can transform them.
When we accompany from the “I help you,” from the place of pobrecita, we risk taking away exactly what we hope to strengthen. But when we accompany from humility, something shifts: power is not given, it is remembered.
As I shared with the women that day: “You already carry everything you need to bloom. No one empowers you… The power has always been within you.”
We are not here to give power.
We are here to create the conditions for it to be seen, felt, and reclaimed.
ALFA and MIEL are not just cooperatives. They are a living ecosystem, women who are both seeds and gardeners, growing their own futures while nurturing their communities.
I leave with deep gratitude:
To Verónica Vences, Samantha Sandoval, and the Latino Community Foundation, for your trust and vision.
To Gaby Orantes, for dreaming this work and tending it with such care so it can truly take root and flourish.
And to all the promotoras! Thank you for reminding us that true leadership is relational, rooted in care, and built in community.
We are all seeds. We are all gardeners.
Claudia Arroyo – Executive Director – Prospera