Latinitas

Latinitas is a nonprofit focused on empowering Latina youth through media and technology.

Description:
Latinitas is dedicated to empowering Latina youth through media. Latinitas creates an empowering online bilingual magazine (www.LatinitasMagazine.org) focused on informing, entertaining, and inspiring young Latinas to grow into healthy, confident, and successful Latinas. To encourage girls to express themselves, we offer an innovative series of workshops, mentor projects, after-school clubs, and camps aimed at promoting media awareness and participation among Hispanic girls. Throughout these programs we offer fun and engaging lessons on media awareness, Latino culture, writing, editing, journalism, art, desktop publishing, film, radio, web design, and photography.

History:
Latinitas was started by six students in a Latinos and Media course at the University of Texas at Austin in the spring of 2002. Under the instruction of Professor Federico Subervi, the group developed the concept for a magazine especially for Hispanic girls. Recognizing the incredible need for a publication that focused on the experiences of Latina youth, two students - Laura Donnelly and Alicia Rascon - decided to take action to transform the project into a reality at the end of the course. They started gathering a group of friends and volunteers to form the Latinitas student organization at the University of Texas at Austin. The monthly webzine was launched in January of 2003. After graduation, both continued to develop Latinitas into a publication staffed with volunteer editors, reporters, translators, photographers and advertising consultants. During the summer of 2003, the program expanded to offer quarterly media workshops for Latino youth in the community. Club Latinitas, a weekly after-school newsroom for middle school Latinitas, started in the fall of 2003. During February of 2003, Latinitas launched Teen Latinitas, the teen version of the magazine. Subsequently, the TRIP (Teen Reporter Intern Program) was developed as the magazine's teen advisory board.

Contact people:

Alicia Rascon, Chief Executive Officer, (email) Laura Donnelly, Chief Operating Officer, (512) 322-9947, (email) Angie Ayala, Volunteer Coordinator, (email)

Address:

PO Box 4284 Austin, TX 78765

Web Site: http://www.LatinitasMagazine.org

Last updated on August 20, 2009