Photo: Joshua Slack/AFSC
PVI’s mission is to provide spaces where immigrants and refugees feel safe and welcome, learn from each other, reclaim their cultural rights, and build a sense of belonging and power for social change.
Since 1998, PVI has responded to the Valley’s evolving demographic landscape. Ethnically and linguistically diverse indigenous migrants from Mexico and Central America have arrived. Hmong and Cambodians refugees from Southeast Asia have come. More recently, refugee families have arrived from Iraq, Palestine, Syria, and Iran.
PVI works with immigrants and refugee communities. We build alliances and open spaces with other disenfranchised communities in the Valley. These include African Americans and Native Americans. Our work is cross-generational with specific emphasis on women, youth and indigenous populations.
One of our key strategies is to foster active citizenship. We encourage political self-representation and realization of the power social actors can have. We promote social change and advocating for just policies.
Popular Education, Participatory Action Research, and Cultural Organizing guide our work. These methodologies privilege the knowledge and wisdom of communities. They help identify goals and determine pathways forward.
