Who We Are

In 1977, Santa Cruz Barrios Unidos (SCBU) set out to heal our communities, build sustainable peace and end interpersonal, community and structural violence. For forty years, Barrios Unidos has provided culturally-driven and spiritually-informed services to youth and adults within our most marginalized communities. Our services are both preventative and restorative, which has called us to environments from middle schools to maximum security facilities. Barrios Unidos is considered a vestige of the Civil Rights movement, as it manifested in California. As such, our organization has remained at the forefront of cultural uplifting, racial justice, community healing, policy initiatives and restorative justice work in both youth and adult facilities as well as state and local communities. Barrios Unidos organized the first ever transcultural, incarcerated gang prevention summit in 1993, known as the Kansas City Peace Summit. Today, the Peace Plan that resulted from that summit has been adopted by the incarcerated community across the state.