Collaboration is on the agenda for a new community organization, a local NGO recommends ways to help migrant children, a photography exhibit from Cervantino is in town, and the city and a local Red Cross team recently won major awards.
Here’s the latest on some of the many community activities happening in and around San Miguel de Allende.
San Miguel Forum aims to link philanthropy, NGOs
A new community organization focused on addressing challenging social issues by enhancing collaborative efforts held its bilingual inaugural event Oct. 6-9 at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel.
The San Miguel Forum drew 88 invited attendees evenly split between foreigners and Mexicans, said Larry Cooley, one of the group’s cofounders. Participants included international philanthropists, implementers and policy-makers interested in scaling solutions to societal challenges in six areas.
These areas — dropout prevention, hospice/palliative care, girls’ empowerment, youth employment, and water and watersheds — were joined by the overarching issue of community cohesion, which Cooley said turned out to be the most popular theme.
“It seemed important (due to) the gentrification of San Miguel, so some sense of belonging and some sense of community identity didn’t get lost in the shuffle,” he said. “It has different manifestations in different places. With people from outside, it was different than within San Miguel.”
According to a media release issued after the inaugural event, the forum’s goal “is not simply to identify problems, but to connect people and resources around solutions that can grow to match the scale of the need while remaining locally appropriate and sustainable.”
Cooley said foreigners who attended the inaugural event had an interest in scaling efforts, as well as an interest in Mexico, and that organizers wanted to focus on issues that were “really topical for Mexico now.”
Private philanthropy is being called upon to do a lot more these days, he said, and it needs to find ways to collaborate with government and the private sector to solve societal problems at scale.
“Mexico is ahead on many, many things but is behind on that part,” Cooley said. “Philanthropy’s role at scale is trying to find ways to influence what governments are doing but doing it better and include people who are not being included.”
The San Miguel Forum is planning a second gathering in San Miguel in November 2027. For more information, contact info@sanmiguelforum.org.
Ways to help migrant children, courtesy of local NGO
The San Miguel-based Latin American Relief Fund (LARF) is recommending a number of ways to assist migrant children in both Mexico and the United States. As the group’s October newsletter discusses, thousands of children have been separated from their families when parents are either detained or deported from the U.S.
LARF recommends supporting the ABBA migrant shelter in Celaya, which will celebrate its 11th anniversary next month. ABBA provides children with education, rehabilitation and therapy, while helping them acquire the documents required to enroll in school or access other services in Mexico.
Life on pause: The children left in limbo after their parents’ deportation to Mexico
LARF also recommends these U.S. organizations that help migrant children:
- The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights, which supplies trained staff and volunteers to act as independent child advocates.
- The Acacia Center for Justice, which provides lawyers for unaccompanied children.
- Each Step Home, which funnels donations to a commissary account for families held in a Dilley, Texas, detention camp.
Centro gallery hosts photography exhibit from Cervantino
The 54th annual Cervantino Festival in Guanajuato, held Oct. 3-18, is again sharing artistic offerings with other cities in Mexico. Last year, San Miguel was a host city for live music performances and film screenings from the festival’s Cervantino Circuit schedule.
This time, a photography exhibit called “Habitando la imagen” (“Inhabiting the Image”) features the work of Yolanda Andrade Salas. Her photography reveals “the complexity of urban life, popular culture, diverse identities, and the everyday gestures that construct collective memory.”
The exhibit will be shown through Jan. 10, 2027, at Galería Meridiana 101º inside the Instituto Allende, Ancha de San Antonio 22 in Centro.
4 Mexican bars are among this year’s World’s 50 Best
Condé Nast Traveler readers rate San Miguel 4th-best city
The 2026 Readers’ Choice Awards from Condé Nast Traveler magazine ranked San Miguel No. 4 on the list of the 10 Best Small Cities in the World. It was rated No. 5 last year.
Victoria, Canada, was No. 1 on this year’s list, followed by Puerto Vallarta; Florence, Italy; San Miguel; Lucerne, Switzerland; Dubrovnik, Croatia; Porto, Portugal; Amalfi, Italy; Venice, Italy; and San Sebastian, Spain.
San Miguel did much better in Travel + Leisure magazine’s 2026 World’s Best Awards, coming in at No. 1 for the second year in a row.
Local Red Cross team shines in national competition
Cruz Roja Mexicana, the local Mexican Red Cross organization in San Miguel, was recently named No. 7 across the country in a National Vehicular Rescue Competition. The competition tested emergency rescue team members on their rapid response, technical skill and preparedness.
Team members were challenged with a timed simulated motor vehicle accident and had to use extraction equipment, apply patient care techniques and work together to achieve the desired results. They were congratulated by municipal and community leaders for the impressive national achievement.
Cathy Siegner is an independent journalist based in San Miguel and Montana. She has journalism degrees from the University of Oregon and Northwestern University.
