Conference Seeks to Inspire Latinas

More than 500 Latina high school students are expected at Comision Femenil’s sixth annual youth conference Saturday at Cal State Northridge.

“Adelante Mujer Latina,” (Forward Latina Women) was designed to inspire and motivate high school Latinas to strive for college educations and professional careers and to introduce them to role models in a variety of potential career paths, said Laura Casas-Frier, a member of Comision Femenil and an organizer of the free, daylong event.

The conference will include workshops offering career advice in fields ranging from law enforcement and education to business and medicine. Workshops on college preparation and obtaining college financial assistance will also be offered.

Significantly, all of the workshops will be led by Latina women, two of whom attended previous conferences, Casas-Frier said. “I feel that it is so important that these girls be inspired,” she said. “You look at the statistics and Latinas have a very high high school dropout rate, a low college attendance rate and a high pregnancy rate. For many, careers are not an option. That’s why it is so important that we reach out.”

Saturday’s event will be the last funded through a federal grant that has sustained the conference through its first six years, Casas-Frier said. Organizers hope to raise enough money to continue holding conferences in the future.

“We are going to try to keep it going, but this could be it,” Casas-Frier said.

Maria Contreras-Sweet, president of the Contreras-Sweet Co., a Los Angeles-based marketing and communications consulting firm, will be the keynote speaker at the conference.

The conference, which begins at 9:30 a.m., will be held in the CSUN Student Union, at Nordhoff Street and Zelzah Avenue in Northridge. Free bus service will be available from several locations around the Valley.

Registration is scheduled from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m.

For more information, call Casas-Frier at (818) 363-1354.