Aliento is recognized by Fast Company as one of the 2020 World Changing Ideas!
PHOENIX, AZ. - Today, Aliento received an honorable mention in Fast Company’s 2020 World Changing Ideas. The US business magazine recognized Aliento in the Social Justice category.
Now in its fourth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 26 winners, more than 200 finalists, and more than 500 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, Corporate Social Responsibility, and AI and Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent judges selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 3,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. The 2020 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Vancouver to Singapore to Tel Aviv.
“We are so honored to be chosen out of a pool of more than 3,000 entries! We would like to thank the educators at Eisenhower Center for Innovation, for our partnership and all our supporters who believe in transforming trauma into hope and action!” - Reyna Montoya
Aliento has been engaged with students within the Mesa Public Schools district, bringing arts + healing workshops relating to agency, identity, and empowerment to decrease anxiety and stress. Aliento also holds professional development with teachers to center social emotional learning strategies that will lead to safe and welcoming classrooms that engage in culturally responsive pedagogy. Part of the professional development is to help educators create strategies that they can implement in their classroom to improve classroom culture and student-to-teacher relationships.
About the World Changing Ideas Awards:
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With a goal of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
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Aliento is a community organization that is DACA, undocumented and youth-led. We are directly impacted people and allies who are invested in the well being, emotional healing, and leadership development of those impacted by the inequalities of lacking an immigration status.
Maria Garcia, an undocumented student and fellow at Aliento states, “My heart was so full this morning to hear that DACA would not be ending. DACA recipients are able to have peace and be stress free about what their future holds. My brother along with some of my cousins have DACA and are working incredibly hard for their families. However, I am an undocumented student who was not able to apply for DACA, along with the rest of the Dreamers. This victory is a huge step, but one of the many that we will be taking. It will lead us to having our American Dream and everything we've worked so hard for. The fight is not over yet, until ALL Dreamers are able to make their dreams and goals come true, without having their status holding them back. This victory fills me with more and more faith. We will continue to fight, our dreams are not illegal.”
Ray Ybarra-Maldonado, an immigration lawyer states, “One more thing to clarify is that the decision today, in my opinion, leaves the program how it was yesterday. People who were in the program can continue to renew. People who were ever in DACA can continue to apply to the program. If you’ve never been in it, I don’t think this decision opens that up although we can receive future actions from district courts.”
Reyna Montoya, founder and CEO of Aliento and DACA recipient states, “If you are an educator, a business leader, a faith leader or a community member who cares, you have the power to call Sen. McSally and Sen. Sinema and plead them to have a permanent solution for Dreamers like me and 25,000 DACA recipients and close to 100,000 Dreamers too young to apply.”
Aliento in partnership with therapists will be hosting group therapy sessions online. We have also created a toolkit to provide information about the decision, mental health tips and sessions, and virtual meetings about what the decision means.
