Bethany Rivera Molinar partners with her community to bring transformation

Bethany Rivera Molinar lives and works in the Rio Grande neighborhood in central El Paso. As the executive director for Ciudad Nueva, Bethany is passionate about seeing God’s kingdom unfold in her neighborhood, and it is, because of the nature of the people who live there with her. 

Ciudad Nueva is an asset based Christian community development organization. Its staff and interns are made up mostly of Latina women. They work toward the renewal and development of the neighborhood through the empowerment and transformation of its residents. They host after school programs for youth, food co-ops, community events, and so much more.

The past five years has seen a transformation in the Rio Grande neighborhood. Bethany has been part of Ciudad Nueva since 2013 and has served as its executive director since 2020. She emphasizes that the key to their mission is partnering with the residents, often the Latina women. 

“Women in marginalized contexts are often the ones who get the job done,” Bethany said, as she reflected on what makes her most proud of her Chicana heritage. She can see firsthand in her community how it’s her fellow Latina neighbors who keep the community together, who connect neighbors with the resources and assets they need. She watches her neighbors, many of whom are single mothers, run their households efficiently while working multiple jobs. Latina women carry both trauma and resiliency from a collective history. They are collaborative and resourceful by nature and by necessity. 

It’s these exact qualities that make the members of her community the best partners for Ciudad Nueva’s vision of transformation. Bethany hires women and men who are already leaders in the community to be “resource connectors” and ensure that other residents have what they need. 

As a Latino neighborhood about a mile from the international borderline, Bethany understands that Rio Grande community serves as a liminal space, a marginalized space, perfectly situated for God to show up and for God’s kingdom to unfold. Her organization’s mission of partnering with the community for transformation is truly a picture of the kingdom of God.