Go Austin Vamos Austin

Go Austin/Vamos Austin (GAVA) is a place-based health equity initiative working to build community power, increase access to healthy food and safe physical activity, and foster permanency in Austin’s Eastern Crescent. GAVA is a women-of-color-led organization, with the majority of staff coming from or currently living in and sharing similar life experiences with the residents of the neighborhoods we serve. Taken as a whole, GAVA’s scope of work seeks to eliminate barriers to healthy living in South, Southeast and North Central Austin. GAVA’s initial scope as a place-based childhood obesity initiative was informed by evidence- and research-based population health strategies. However, the community organizing approach that operationalizes GAVA co-designs goals in which people with lived experience, from the neighborhoods, contextualize strategies and shape the tactics used to drive change. GAVA’s progress is measured by our ability to achieve wins against those community-set priorities, and by the number of people in the community who build their leadership skills, public voice, and ability to leverage various resources to address the issues they face.