Awards

Believer in the power of together | Language Access Advocate | Community Connector | Change-maker

Vanessa Rodríguez is the Co-Director of the Community Engagement Coalition at LiveWell Greenville. In this role, she leads initiatives to strengthen relationships, build trust, and create opportunities that amplify community voices across Greenville County. She brings over 20 years of experience in communications and public relations to her work. Before relocating to Greenville, South Carolina, following Hurricane Maria, she lived in Puerto Rico, where she served as Director of Public Relations for the Commission for Women’s Affairs in the Governor’s Office, Director of Communications and Press for the Office of the Women’s Advocate, and Communications Consultant for the Autonomous Municipality of Caguas.

She values authenticity and strives to create spaces where people feel safe to be open, honest, and fully themselves. Her work is guided by a deep passion for justice, women’s rights, and community engagement. She is committed to advancing equity, amplifying historically marginalized voices, and fostering collaborative relationships that drive meaningful and sustainable change.

Vanessa is deeply committed to women’s empowerment, which led her to create the platform DESCALZA, where she provides support, shares hope, offers holistic development workshops, and engages in community service. Supporting Hispanic families and helping pave the way for those facing challenges she knows firsthand is one of her greatest motivations.

Outside of work, she enjoys supporting her son Lorenzo’s soccer team, traveling, running, and spending time with her husband Ángel, her family, and friends.

For nearly two decades, Gloria has devoted herself to supporting the Latino community, previously in New York and for the past seven years in South Carolina. Gloria has been promoting public health, mental health, and community engagement with compassion and dedication. As the Statewide Latinx Program Coordinator for Ending the HIV Epidemic, Gloria has worked to ensure culturally and linguistically appropriate education, prevention, and access to health services for people living with HIV were offered. Since learning her son was living with a mental health condition, she has been committed to educating herself and the community, while supporting others through South Carolina’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) bilingual educational programs, support groups, and advocacy.  In 2021, Orgullo Y Salud was started. Gloria was appointed Chair of the South Carolina Orgullo y Salud workgroup. Orgullo y Salud meetings are held monthly and is a welcoming space fostering leadership, collaboration, and empowerment to help Latino families thrive with dignity, knowledge, and hope.

Restore Justice advocates for fairness, humanity, and compassion throughout the Illinois criminal legal system, with a primary focus on those affected by extreme sentences as youth. We create and support policies that allow those who are rehabilitated to go home, and that ensure those incarcerated, their families, and victim families have opportunities for healing and justice. We engage people who are currently and formerly incarcerated and their loved ones, victims and their families, communities, and concerned Illinoisans in advocacy and service within the criminal legal system. Learn more: restorejustice.org

The mission of Hispanic Services Council (HSC) is to increase access and opportunities for Latinos and influence the systems that serve them. Founded in 1992, HSC has addressed the lack of access to services available to Latino immigrant families through bilingual and bicultural outreach, education, systems navigation, family support and immigration legal services.

Hispanic Services Council’s programs aim to promote the academic success of youth; increase parental engagement in the education of their children; reduce food and healthcare insecurity through benefits and insurance enrollment assistance; and promote paths to citizenship through affordable and quality immigration legal services. Our programs and services focus on addressing the barriers of access to educational, health and social services due to language limitations, immigration status or fear.

HSC is committed to lifting the voices that tell the stories of strength, resilience, and perseverance of the Latino community, as well as ensuring that Latinos have access to the resources and opportunities that help them to climb the socioeconomic ladder, be healthy and educated, develop social connections and to be civically engaged.

In 2013, The Anchorage Health Literacy Collaborative (TAHLC) partners teamed up with Alaska Literacy Program adult students to empower each other with reliable information pipelines and connections to community healthcare providers. Alaska Literacy Program and TAHLC partners created the Peer Leader Navigators (PLNs) to serve as information beacons in their communities, connecting their neighbors, friends, and families to vital health tips and community resources.

ALP’s Peer Leader Navigator (PLN) program trains multilingual people to be health and wellness information promoters within their familial, social, and cultural groups. PLNs become empowered with research methods and access to trustworthy information. They, in turn, empower their communities.

As a result of this initiative, educators, community partners, and healthcare providers are better able to meet traditionally underrepresented community members where they are; helping to provide vital information and services across Alaska. Ongoing partnerships help keep this mutually beneficial connection alive.