For Latinas, by Latinas: this is the motto of the Latinas LEAD Power Summit.
In June of 2019, team member Laura Soto not only attended but spoke at this event. Her blog post about the experience ends with a sentence that, when viewed through the eyes of COVID-19, is a little haunting: “[I] await the day when we will be reunited again.”
Although community members were not able to meet in person this year, the Latino Community Foundation of Colorado (LCFC) has worked hard to facilitate opportunities for Latinas to collaborate, learn, and embrace the transfer of wisdom between generations.
As such, this summer’s Latinas LEAD Power Summit assumed a new form: the Latinas LEAD Virtual Leadership Series. This series consisted of five virtual conversations with nationally recognized authors, on-the-ground Coloradan activists, and other Latina leaders. It explored topics like self-awareness, the effects of the pandemic, and Latinx medicinal traditions.
[These videos are] an insight into the great unity and collective healing that the LCFC is fostering through their work . . . It is incredibly healing and empowering to be among other people who look like you, identify like you . . . who are now striving for leadership positions and pushing for opening the path of social justice for the masses beyond ourselves. I wish with all my heart that all BIPOC and oppressed peoples would have a uniting experience like the Latinas LEAD conference infuses in its participants.
–Laura Soto
You can watch the series here or by navigating the playlist below.
Visit the LCFC website for more information about their work, including the critical leadership they have provided since the outset of the Covid19 crisis through the Ayuda Colorado initiative. Click here to read their report highlighting Colorado nonprofits and communities response to the pandemic: “Covid19 Impact on Latino and Immigrant Communities.”
Header image credit: Holly Hursley