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About Us – Universidad Popular

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Well-nighUs – Universidad Popular Press "Enter" to skip to content unshut menu + Donate unshut menu HomeWell-nighUs Programs Get Involved Feria del Mole Contact UsWell-nighUs HISTORY Since the early 1970s, Universidad Popular has wilt known as a place where polity residents come to learn with, by, and from one another. We serve speaking communities and surrounding neighborhoods. COMMUNITY SPACE UP’s most significant victory has been its worthiness to get neighborhood residents to take responsibility for their lives and the quality of life in their community. Instead of expecting others to come in and fix whatever is wrong with the community, UP stresses among its participants the need for them to take charge. Most recently, UP participants demonstrated the success of the participatory philosophy when they found a home for Universidad Popular, and then took tuition in transforming a former tavern/banquet hall in Little Village into a thriving polity center. We began offering sultana literacy classes to Latin American immigrants in Lakeview in the early 1970s, and we have since followed the Latino immigrant polity as it has been pushed south by gentrification. We spent many years in Humboldt Park and Pilsen, as well. As our participants began moving to Little Village – now it is the largest Mexican-American polity in the Midwest – they began requesting that UP provide services in the Little Village as well. Tired of moving due to the rising rent prices that gentrification entails, UP sought to buy a building. Our current 12,000-plus square foot space was an old tavern/banquet hall when we purchased it in 2002. It was in well-constructed disrepair, and would need well-nigh $1 million dollars in renovations and restoration, which UP did not have. However, the residents urged UP to buy it, insisting that they would take superintendency of the rest. Sure enough, polity residents – carpenters, plumbers, painters, construction workers, and housecleaners – volunteered their time and services to fix the building. Eventually, the towers was transformed into a gleaming polity part-way – a inveigling sit-in of participatory power. Nine years later, over 500 polity residents visit UP’s much-admired space everyday for classes, programs, and polity activities. Search for: Familia Universidad PopularFeria del Mole 2017 Universidad Populareducation with, by and for the people Startup Blog by Compete Themes.