Civic Engagement

Operating with unwavering hope, we believe in achieving the seemingly unattainable. “Si se puede” embodies a collective awakening to individual and communal power. Our civic engagement department is dedicated to equipping grassroots leaders with the tools and knowledge essential for guiding their communities toward enduring transformative solutions. We aim to create a Central Valley of informed and engaged citizens and voters ready to advocate, educate, vote, and use our political system to create a more just and equitable Central Valley.

In 2021, DHF established the Central Valley Equitable Maps coalition that successfully advocated for representative Assembly, Senate & Congressional maps. DHF secured the City of Bakersfield’s redistricting victory, resulting in the election of the city’s first Punjabi Sikh council member. We engaged over 5,000 community members, drastically altering the power dynamics in the Central Valley. This effort completely reversed the Voting Rights Act (VRA) districts ratio to non-VRA districts at state and federal levels and increased county supervisorial VRA districts by 135%, promising lasting impact for decades. More recently, in 2022, DHF played a major role in securing the adoption of new congressional, senate, and assembly district maps in the Central Valley!