Aliento Features: Ivette Sosa
Ivette Sosa
Fellow at Aliento
Meet Ivette Sosa, she was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona. She is a graduating Senior at Westwood High School.
Ivette is also one of the five famous student fellows here at Aliento and is an organizer with the Arizona’s Future, an awareness campaign for Tuition Equity for all Arizona HS graduates regardless of immigration status
Why Aliento?
“I first heard about Aliento my sophomore year of high school when Reyna came to give an informational presentation to the AVID classes at Westwood.
I decided to apply to the fellowship because I had been involved with Aliento as a volunteer for about a year, and I wanted to enhance my involvement. I am passionate about advocating against the social injustices the immigrant community faces, especially students, and the fellowship was the perfect fit for learning and involving others”
As a Fellow and organizer for the Arizona Future campaign, Ivette brought the campaign to her school at Westwood. She started by collecting pledges during lunches/ classes, to giving presentation about how DACA/ undocumented students are impacted when it comes to the hardships of pursuing a higher education in Arizona.
Like other the other fellows, Ivette’s leadership and organizing was key for Education Day where we collectively turned out more than 250 people!
Ivette with her team on Education Day
“One of my proudest moments of my fellowship was getting up to 25-30 students to go to Aliento’s Education Day in January. I was able to lead a group of 10 students to important meetings with our Arizona State Representatives and Senators. It was the first moment in which I actually felt like a leader.”
At her school, Ivette was the president of the Latinx Club and Vice President for the AVID Club. She heavily focused on bringing awareness of current socials issues to her school, helping organize an assembly to educate her classmates about DACA and mixed status families. She was awarded the “Harold Crenshaw Unity Award” this year for demonstrating unity, diversity and leadership in campus. She was also named a Wood Scholar at Westwood for work and leadership, and will graduate with a 4.5 GPA!
“Some of the things I learned as a fellow, was the importance of outreach for an event!! It’s truly important because it makes or breaks an event. For example, if you want 100 people to attend, you need to invite 3x as much people. I also learned more of the facts of how DACA/ undocumented students are impacted and it was important for when people ask questions and to inform people. I would DEFINITELY recommend the fellowship to other students!! It is an opportunity to expand one’s knowledge and involvement. It’s months full of learning and growing. “
After the fellowship, I’m getting ready to attend Arizona State University in the fall! I’m double majoring in Political Science and Transborder Studies. I’m looking for new ways to get involved in my community. I’m planning on starting my own project.
End.
We provide leadership development, organizing trainings, and provide the tools for our fellows to become leaders in their communities. In order to fund a fellow, it takes $4000. We’ve raised $450 so far!
Click here to donate $5, $10, $25 to support our next fellow!