SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – A group of San Diego women who can now call themselves graduates of the MANA Latina Leadership Success Program.
“No woman, I don't care what nationality you are, where you come from should have to go alone,” Adela Garcia said.
Garcia is a member of the local chapter of MANA, the Mexican American women's national organization, and the founder of LSLP, which started back in 2015.
“This program is not for a woman that doesn't know what she wants. She's in a professional career already. She needs to keep going up, really improving, escalating where she wants to go,” she said.
Garcia says she and others wanted a way to help Latinas advance.
Statistics show only four percent of workforce Latinas are in professional or managerial roles, even less in elected offices.
“The fact that so often Latinas are really the first in their families to move forward, we really don't have those role models and especially in the professional job fields, she said. "And our attempt to address this problem was through this wonderful leadership program."
Last weekend the program, which is done in partnership with the center for creative leadership, celebrated the completion of its 6th cohort.
Participants attend workshops and classes on Saturdays for about four months, learning, building confidence and perhaps most importantly, a strong support system.
“Because they'll come out of this with a wonderful network of incredible women who want to help them, and it's really quite marvelous,” Garcia said.
Garcia says LSLP is really about empowerment and finding the tools to lift yourself up.
“You find your mentors and your champions you want to get ahead, you need to have those two elements,” she said. “When you start to own your own destiny, great things happen.”
If you're interested in participating, MANA de San Diego will announce details on how to apply for its next cohort of the Latina Leadership Success Program sometime in January 2023.
