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Juan Pablo Chávez was born and raised in Mexico. When he was a teenager, he came to the United States in search of better opportunities. In 1992 he started to organize youth groups as a Catholic volunteer in the Archdiocese of Chicago. In 1998 he became a Professional Community Organizer with the Southwest Organizing Project in Chicago, a member of Industrial Areas Foundation through United Power for Action and Justice, a large faith-based community organization on the Southwest side of Chicago. In the Southwest Organizing Project he organized more than 175 marches with close to 20 churches in southwest Chicago. He also participated in a successful campaign for in-state tuition for undocumented students in Illinois. In 2005, he was invited by the DART network to work in the Pinellas and Hillsborough County in Florida, where he was part of the effort to pass an amendment to help low income families get affordable housing.
His vocation as an organizer was influenced at the early age of five by his who, by necessity, led a neighborhood group of families to fight their displacement and for low-income housing in a process of gentrification in Mexico. He has community organizing in his blood, fire in his belly, and faith and justice in his heart. Through this mission he has received a call to work with the immigrant community. Juan Pablo can be described as an insatiable fighter for social justice. He has deep respect for the dignity of the people he seeks to help, especially the youth, women and immigrants.
