Esperanza Familiar: A University-Community Partnership in the Settlement House Tradition GCP-98-4

Richard S. Kordesh
Richard S. Kordesh teaches family policy and community development at the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago.

Abstract
This paper uses a network analysis to study the emergence of a communityuniversity partnership in Chicago’s Pilsen community. It tracks the creation of Esperanza Familiar, a joint product of the Resurrection Project, a community development corporation in Pilsen and the Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago. The partnership has been supported by funding and technical assistance from the University of Illinois Neighborhoods Initiative. Seen as a social learning network, the partnership creates and disseminates knowledge to such diverse beneficiaries as faculty, graduate students, staff of the Resurrection Project and families in the neighborhood. This learning is reminiscent of the education-based approaches to community empowerment that were spawned by Jane Addams’ Hull-House in Chicago in the early twentieth century.

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