The Community-Led Newsroom Bringing Vital News and Information to Philly’s Latine Community

A cosmetologist, community outreach worker, physical therapist, and small business owner sit together around a small, white rectangular coffee table littered with white coffee mugs in a small furnished room with an eye-catching yellow accent wall adjacent to an exposed brick wall.

The four Latina women— the director of the Pennsylvania Association of Cosmetologists, the outreach worker, a physical therapist in Norristown, and the owner of a popular local Colombian restaurant in North Philadelphia—are from different walks of life. And they are unlikely to cross paths in any other scenario except for this one: recording an episode of 2Puntos Platform’s “VozColectiva.”

2Puntos Platform (pronounced: dos puntos or “two points of view” in English) is a community-led media platform that amplifies the stories and experiences of Latine immigrants living in the United States, especially in Philadelphia. Emma Restrepo, 2Puntos Platform’s founder, started the hyperlocal newsroom to inform, educate, and uplift Greater Philadelphia's Latine communities.

“I’ve been a journalist for a long time, and I have written a lot about issues affecting the Latino community. During that time, one of my main sources was women in the Latine community, specifically women who were heavily involved,” said Emma Restrepo. “I think it’s important to open doors to the media for other Latinas and create a platform for them to share everything they know firsthand.”

The platform has two programs: 2Puntos Podcast, a standard local news reporting podcast, and VozColectiva, a community newsroom made up of four Latina women who are building the narrative power of Philadelphia’s Latine community and sharing information as a form of community care and a way to build trust, connection and belonging between the community and local organizations.

The women of VozColectiva use their deep ties in the Greater Philadelphia region’s Latine community to report on issues impacting the community and increase awareness of and access to social resources and programs regardless of immigration status.

Since their launch in 2022, they’ve become a source of trusted information as they foster community by amplifying the shared experiences among the region’s Latine women. Moreover, VozColectiva has been praised for creating effective strategies and various formats that engage and support its audience while strengthening its journalistic impact. The program was awarded the “Product of the Year—Micro Revenue Tier” at LION Publisher’s 2023 Local Journalism Awards.

The Women of VozColectiva (left to right): Zulma Guzman, Evelyn Toriz, Mercy Mosquera, and Tannia Solis

With support and guidance from the 2Puntos production team, the women receive weekly media training to conduct and record interviews with community leaders and organizations. These interviews are live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook once a month, and later shared on Instagram and WhatsApp. The women direct all aspects of the program, including the guests interviewed and the issues discussed.

“It was interesting when I asked ‘Okay, chicas, what do you think is an issue affecting the Latino community?’ Al unísono [in unison], they responded: 'Domestic violence.' Some women from VozColectiva are survivors of domestic violence and believe it to be one of the main issues affecting the Latino immigrant community in the United States,” Emma said.

VozColectiva is working to end the silence around domestic violence within the region's Latine immigrant community. They interview community leaders and organizations in Greater Philadelphia to inform domestic violence survivors about available resources.

For instance, on a livestream posted to Facebook (a popular platform for the Latine community), two VozColectiva women are filmed from a corner space adorned with art on the walls. Sitting between them is Azucena Ugarte, the Director of the Office of Domestic Strategies for the City of Philadelphia. Ugarte briefly shares her Peruvian background and discusses in Spanish—the language used for all VozColectiva interviews and resources—how her office develops resources and policies to support victims of domestic violence.

The pamphlet unfolded 

In addition to the interviews, VozColectiva created a discreet pocket-sized pamphlet that, when unfolded, reveals a colorful single page printed front and back in Spanish with life-saving information, tips, and stories of people going through or escaping domestic violence. The collective spent about five months meeting with organizations that serve the Latino community to identify and gather these resources, which also include domestic hotlines, organizations that provide refuge, and more.

One pamphlet section titled “Recupera Tú Vida” (take back your life) tells the true stories of women who are victims of physical, verbal, and financial abuse named, for the purpose of identity safety, “Beatríz,” “Margarita,” and “Leimy,” respectively. Each vignette describes different types of domestic abuse, and explains that verbal and financial abuse are domestic abuse but not as visible or well-known as physical abuse.

Leimy’s story, for example, shines a light on “blurrier” instances of abuse. She is advised by a trusted friend that it’s not a good idea to stay in a relationship with her partner even if he helps her pay rent. He still has a family in his home country and doesn’t treat Leimy’s children well.

“Traditional domestic violence pamphlets usually show women crying with running makeup and they have bruise marks on the areas where they were hit. We don’t want to victimize women like that and that's why the women on our flier are not crying. But, they are thinking and realizing ‘Wait, am I in a violent relationship?’ The VozColectiva women decided nobody is crying in this, no victimization,” said Emma.

2Puntos also partners with local mainstream media outlets such as Billy Penn to raise awareness about domestic violence and to ring the alarm about the lack of proper protections and support for immigrant women, who are often either afraid to seek help or turned away due to their immigration status.

Three years after 2Puntos launched VozColectiva, more women are reaching out to them via platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook asking to be connected to the organizations and resources they discuss and share online and in the flier.

The women continue to boldly advocate for Latinas affected by domestic violence by sharing valuable resources and tips. A recent version of their pamphlet includes a message of hope and empowerment for women in the community:

“We have to realize our value, how much we can do for ourselves, and the abilities that we’ve been gifted. We must all discover that we have the power.”