Community Spotlight

Cultivando Liderazgo is a ten-hour leadership training culturally tailored for rural Latino populations as part of the Ford Institute Leadership Program.

RDI has facilitated Latino leadership trainings in over 20 communities in Oregon and four other states. These trainings are dynamic, informative, and relevant to Latino traditions in rural communities.

Cultivando Liderazgo is intended to increase unity among Latinos in the community, to increase Latino participation in the community, and to develop the dreams that the participants have for their community life.

A hallmark of Cultivando Liderazgo is the “Huerta,” or orchard, participants build during the training. Small groups of participants work together to build an asset tree in which they record and represent their personal assets in the leaves and branches, institutional and organizational assets in the trunk, and physical and economic assets in the roots.

The small groups bring their trees together to form the “huerta” of assets among which they identify creative ways they can use what they have in their orchard to create something positive for their community.

The exercise is both a visual representation and literal listing of their communities’ assets, and participants work to develop ideas for ways to engage their community.

The Cultivando Liderazgo participants also design and hold an event to foster community participation from the Latino community where they live. Such events have included: Carnival, Day of the Children, Educational Celebration of 5 de Mayo, a workshop on first aid and emergency preparedness, and more.

To learn more about RDI’s Latino leadership programs, contact Mayra Arreola at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

You can also read about our Spanish language offerings in the Spanish section of our website.