Latinitas Club Leaders Learning to be Assertive

There are hundreds of girls a week benefitting from the mentorship, tutoring, digital media education and support of a few great women who signed up for a semester of change.  On Saturday, I met with these women and passed along some wisdom I've gained working in the corporate, boutique and non-profit sectors. I shared this responsibility with Latinitas' board president Becky Arreaga, long time volunteer Sandi L Castro and Latinitas' staff Samantha Rae Lopez, all experienced business women. We talked about being assertive. We defined leaders we want to emulate. We set up mock interviews for practice and we broke out in a discussion groups to discuss the myth of the "B in the boardroom" and how we feel about that description for powerful women.  My intention was to remind the club leaders how powerful their club leader experience is at Latinitas, that the change they are instilling in their younger Latina peers has impact and that they are laying a foundation for these girls in how they express themselves, feel about themselves and their access to education, technology and some other key factors to success.

A lot of the young women that work for Latinitas may dismiss the power and value of what they do/have done and this training was a way to let them know they need to define it to others, communicate it to employers and forever relish the good work they have done overall.  I am so proud of the Latinitas Club Leaders in Austin and El Paso and for the impression they are making every day to ensure Latina girls succeed.  I've said it before: they are the heart of what Latinitas is and does.