Joel Rodriguez is currently a community organizer at the Southwest Organizing Project. He currently leads the Southwest Employment Collaborative and supports SWOP’s youth organizing efforts. His passion is to work with black and brown families to develop their leadership and increase their power to change the trajectory of their lives and communities.
Over the last 12 years, Joel has worked through two different coalitions to organize students and parents successfully passing two statewide bills that aim to eliminate zero tolerance policies in all publicly funded schools in Illinois and the passage of a police accountability ordinance that creates civilian oversight of the Chicago Police Department. He is driven by the pain and hope of generations of people of color that have not stood idly by and have dared to dream and move to action.
