Xinachtli (Nahuatl for germinating seed) is a gender-responsive, culturally-based rites of passage philosophy, process and curriculum that promotes healing, resilience and leadership capacity of Indigenous, Chicana, and Latina cis and trans girls and non-binary youth. The philosophy and curriculum was a response to the spiritual distress experienced by communities of color, reframing a new narrative of transformation healing and advocacy rooted in a gender, racial justice, anti-oppression framework. Based on indigenous principals of the individual’s interconnectedness to the family, the community, and nation.

The Xinachtli curriculum provides a dialectic process of:

• Reflexión (reflection)

• Concientización (critical consciousness)

• Creación (creation)

• Acción (action)

Facilitators and youth participants of Xinachtli Youth Rites of Passage make up the Xinachtli Comadres National Colectiva (XCNC). XCNC is an extended kinship network centering girls, Fem(mes), and non-binary youth of color, vitalizing deep and lasting connections between Indigenous/Chicana/Latinx girls and their communities, to cultivate intergenerational, healing-informed leadership for community health and systems transformation.