Dania Nuno Carrillo
Placed at Washington STEM
What excites you about being part of the Pathwaves Fellowship? What are you hoping to gain from the experience?
My social justice journey started in education; from finding it to be a safe place growing up to realizing how important it was that students felt and heard from all levels of the educations system that they matter. After traversing through life and many lived experiences, I wanted to return to the root of what inspired me to begin. Achieving this through an organization that believes in community leaders of color and invests in them thoughtfully and thoroughly is a privilege. I know that the experience of my cohort fellows and curriculum of Pathwaves WA will allow me to gain new skills and use my knowledge in new and innovative ways.
Share a little about your journey and why you are excited about early childhood policy work.
It was right out of high school, when I first was invited to a meeting hosted by OneAmerica for immigrant parents in Federal Way to meet up and talk about the barriers and dreams they had to engage meaningfully in their children’s education. Though I had no children of my own, one of my friends knew that I was interested in education and decided to invite me to go with their family. Looking back on it now, I’m welled up with emotion with a million thoughts of gratitude and confidence that I was meant to be there. The moms that I met during that time are my strongest inspirations for everything that I do and want to give back to the community. I learned first hand the passion, ardent advocacy and vexatious barriers these moms had to go through and went through with resilience to show up for their children. Now they are in different phases of their own journey, some with incredible jobs that they never dreamed of having, another that was called up too soon, but all of them with their legacy engraved in my memory. This is the way I want to pay this forward. This is the way I want to extend their legacy to as many as possible.
What are you looking forward to doing at your placement site?
I’m most looking forward to bringing about thoughts, ideas and knowledge that can positively influence the early learning – and therefore every other – system for children and their families. Making sure that student, parent and educator voices are always at the forefront and present in any decision making and policy we touch. The other thing I’m looking forward to it learning more about the nitty gritty of what data and information it takes to not only make great policy, but make policy that moves people; communities and the Legislature.
What are two things that most people don’t know about you?
- I cry like every day…. EVERY DAY…But not in a bad way, I’m just a crybaby. I’m ok, I promise!
- I can recite the first eight-ish lines of the Declaration of Independence from memory. Thank you, 8th grade History teacher….!
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