Kenia Pinela is co-developing and implementing a fairly new program for Family, Friends and Neighbors (FFN) child care in the Roaring Fork Valley. Over the last four years of doing this work, she has seen the inequities flourish upon an essential network of women who are the backbone of our economy. FFN providers fill in a gap that has been put on them as a responsibility in order to support non-traditional working hours and those who work multiple jobs, or do not have the funds to pay the licensed care facilities quotes. They fill their role with love and support, while policies in place prevent them from having access to education in their native language and square footage in their home prevents them from not being called legal child care home facilities. Through this work she has brought to light the inequities faced when it comes to families who do not fit the status quo and the providers who also do not fit the status quo and therefore hide in the shadows thinking what they do is wrong. Her desire has pushed her leadership into harder conversations with our counties to begin to create systemic change for the providers, families and children in our community. She runs multiple grants to sustain this program working with 32 providers every two years and 120-160 children ages 0-5 who are in the care of our providers.
Kenia’s educational background started with a passion to see more diversity in school settings. Through her thirteen years of public school, she never had a teacher that looked, spoke or thought like her, and her classroom was fifty percent Caucasian students and fifty percent Latinos. She had a desire for representation of the community’s demographics in teachers educating, therefore she became a teacher. Kenia attended her local community college while working at a nonprofit Valley Settlement as a community organizer. She graduated Colorado Mountain College with a Bachelors of Art in Education and two endorsements: Bilingual Education and Culturally Linguistically Diverse Education. As a Latina who went through the education system, her pedagogy emerged into being culturally responsive to children and families and working as partners with parents to better have students thrive in success.
Through her work as an organizer and developing programs in a community she serves with Latinos/as there are still many social justice issues that are at the forefront of needing voice and advocacy. When she attends the Early Childhood Education advisor board it is not a representation of the children we serve and programs designed to support diverse communities are not the strongest yet. Kenia is passionate about creating space for diversity, equity and inclusion. In order to better serve all communities, we need to have all communities represented when making decisions. Kenia is passionate about including communities most impacted by decisions, and focusing policy efforts around sustainable change.
Kenia’s educational background started with a passion to see more diversity in school settings. Through her thirteen years of public school, she never had a teacher that looked, spoke or thought like her, and her classroom was fifty percent Caucasian students and fifty percent Latinos. She had a desire for representation of the community’s demographics in teachers educating, therefore she became a teacher. Kenia attended her local community college while working at a nonprofit Valley Settlement as a community organizer. She graduated Colorado Mountain College with a Bachelors of Art in Education and two endorsements: Bilingual Education and Culturally Linguistically Diverse Education. As a Latina who went through the education system, her pedagogy emerged into being culturally responsive to children and families and working as partners with parents to better have students thrive in success.
Through her work as an organizer and developing programs in a community she serves with Latinos/as there are still many social justice issues that are at the forefront of needing voice and advocacy. When she attends the Early Childhood Education advisor board it is not a representation of the children we serve and programs designed to support diverse communities are not the strongest yet. Kenia is passionate about creating space for diversity, equity and inclusion. In order to better serve all communities, we need to have all communities represented when making decisions. Kenia is passionate about including communities most impacted by decisions, and focusing policy efforts around sustainable change.