instead of immigration

a Synergos Senior Fellow helps communities become stronger

Being from the ‘northernmost city in Mexico’- San Antonio, Texas- immigration from Mexico was a part of my every day life. So visiting the community of Las Trancas in the Bajío, a central region of Mexico felt, in many ways, more like home than NYC, where I’ve lived for the past six years. Las Trancas, with about 500 residents, is located in the heart of Mexico, about 4 hours northwest of Mexico City.

Group members meet regularly in a community center to discuss issues affecting their community and create solutions together

Adriana Cortes, a Synergos Senior Fellow, runs Fundación Comunitaria del Bajío. Her organization helps communities start their own locally run community foundations wherein members take an active role in creating the life and town they want for themselves and their children. Think education, public facilities, local businesses. Investing in where they live creates more opportunity and lessens the need for forced migration — an issue this community knows all too well. Many of the people from Las Trancas and the surrounding areas have immigrated to the United States in order to provide a better life for their families.

Members of the community set up for a fair in the town center

Women tell Adriana about their day to day chores in the chapel. Community members take turns with church upkeep.

We head down the mountainside to visit other community members. The land is breathtaking.

We visited a thriving family business. They grow cacti and succulents and sell in nearby towns.

Local artisans who make art in a workshop behind their home to sell in the nearby popular tourist towns of San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and Dolores Hidalgo.

A local couple stand in front of their home just off the town’s main square. There’s no place like home.

The people of Las Trancas are making life better at home so that their family members and neighbors have the choice to build a life- and thrive- right where they are.

The Synergos Senior Fellows are a network of more than 150 civil society leaders around the world. We help these leaders, doing amazing work like Adriana, increase their impact as change-makers.