Well-being, Immigration and DACA kids

To learn more about addressing well-being on your team, visit www.evleaderlab.com.

Our guest for Episode 5 is Reyna Montoya, Executive Director of Aliento - a non-profit organization that serves undocumented, DACA, and mixed immigration status families to transform trauma into hope and action.

Reyna is a 2016 Soros Justice Fellow, a 2017 Echoing Green Fellow , a Forbes: 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur, and an ATHENA 2019 recipient by the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce among many other awards.  She also was born in Tijuana Mexico and migrated to the US with her family that was fleeing violence in 2003. 

Reyna describes her experiences growing up undocumented and how that created challenges early on, which she has transformed into taking action at the local and the federal policy level. 

The approach Aliento takes with community members is informed by liberation psychology and reconciliation practices like those used to create change in Rwanda and South Africa.  On liberation psychology, Reyna cites Ignacio Martín-Baró and says she was also much inspired by Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed as well as Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero.

Reyna describes her holistic model and process for improving well-being in her clients, her team members at Aliento and herself.

To learn more, go to AlientoAz.org.  You can also find Aliento on most social media platforms including Facebook, Instragram, TikTok, X, and others.

To learn more about East Valley Leader Lab, go to evleaderlab.com or email us at [e-mail] or [e-mail].