Looking back on this year’s accomplishments
By hola | Published | No Comments
We’ve almost made it to the very last week of the year. Whew! At times, here at Hola Cultura, this year has seemed like a grueling marathon, but looking back now it was a year of trying new things and reaching new heights.
We wrote and published dozens of articles celebrating artists and the important role the arts and humanities play in society. We also ventured into podcasting for the first time with two groundbreaking series that brought our storytelling to new audiences. In this endeavor, we were honored to have the help of local radio stations WAMU/DCist and WTOP. This year, as well, the investigative reporting that served as the inspiration for “The Climate Divide” received an honorable mention in the 2022 Institute for Nonprofit News awards.
Highlights from our 2022 annual report
At the same time we published all this great work, we trained and mentored dozens of young people, some still in high school. They gained 21st century skills and invaluable experience through their work informing the community and shedding light on important but untold or underreported stories.
Our first ever podcast series, “The Climate Divide,” explored how decades of housing discrimination has led to today’s heat islands, neighborhoods and city blocks where it can be as much as 20 degrees warmer than in wealthier D.C. neighborhoods on the hottest summer days. In the fall, we followed up with the intimate and powerful stories of five young Washingtonians whose lives were forever changed by their status as immigrants. That podcast, “Undocu-Life: No Longer Dreaming,” asked hard questions about trauma, government policies, and the way immigrants are perceived.
Thousands of people around the world were touched by these stories in 2022, spending more time, on average, on our webpages than last year, while new listeners found us for the first time. We also expanded our social media storytelling, as we perpetually sought ways to serve and inform the community and be an effective catalyst for positive change.
Stay Tuned: Next week we’ll post our top stories of 2022!
We certainly put our mission in motion this year! In the years to come, we are stoked to keep on celebrating local artists and the important role the arts and humanities play in society, as well as training young people, and bringing to light social and environmental injustices.
We will continue to take on harmful stereotypes and find ways to call attention to our commonalities. Even if the quality of the country’s civic discourse has been poor in recent years, we sincerely believe that we humans have much in common and even our differences make the world a richer place.
We’ll continue to use our storytelling voices to highlight shared interests, experiences and desires, rather than society’s divisions.
As we continue to evolve as an organization, we’d like to thank this year’s funders. We’d also like to wish you a happy and bright holiday season and thank you for being part of our community. We invite you to get involved and help us sustain our work in 2023.
If this work resonates with you, please contribute to our year-end campaign. Help us persevere for another year and make sure that every young person working with Hola Cultura in 2023 receives a weekly stipend to support them financially and honor their dedication and commitment.
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