Midwest Mujeres will kick off its annual Voices and Dreams Academy today with events from Aug. 12 until Día de Muertos on Nov. 1.
Voices and Dreams Academy has been around for three years now. The eight-week-long program hosts many events to give attendees practical skills in financial wellness, branding and storytelling through real-life experiences from coaches. Midwest Mujeres is a mentorship collective for multicultural women entrepreneurs founded by Araceli Esparza, local entrepreneur, author, poet and social justice advocate.
“Basically it’s like meet all these beautiful coaches who traditionally charge upwards of $3,000-5,000 per session. Why not have them come together and offer programming for a nominal amount,” Esparza said. “You go through like five weeks, six weeks of intentional coaching to accumulate to an elevator pitch, but it’s mainly the elevator pitch of your life.”
Coaches throughout the event will be grounded in their talks through their lived experiences. For Esparza, when hearing stories of success, it often skips past pivotal moments of change and goes straight to the top. She wants attendees to hear the real experiences of the full journey.
“We never see you when you had to crawl your way up. People think it must’ve happened because of this or that privilege, or this and that situation, and it’s not always like that,” Esparza said.
This year’s theme will be the American Dream. The theme was picked because of the 250th birthday of the United States, but it also aims to ask what the American Dream looks like through the eyes of women from the Americas.
There will be 11 speakers and mentors this year. Esparza will be one along with: Joanna Roldan, Leti Rico, Gregg Potter, Jonathan Delgado, Amber Swenor, Miriam Hall, Qiana Holmes, Paquita Reddish, Marta Carrion, Presencia Clifton and Tennisha Loggins.
Bios on each can be found on Midwest Mujeres’ website.
Events throughout the eight weeks range from networking, public speaking, confidence building, storytelling, overcoming fears and professional photoshoots. The final event will be a live showcase on Día de los Muertos — Nov. 1.
“The live performance, because it’s on Day of the Dead, traditionally our organization also supported Day of the Dead community events,” Esparza said. “We’ll have a community altar where people can come in … and we’re gonna have this nice area where people can come and drop off pictures and help create this community altar.”
Later that evening, a networking “speed-dating” session, as Esparza describes it, will be followed by dinner and the live show with the graduates from the eight-week program.
Voices and Dreams Academy kicks off today, Aug. 12, at 5:30 p.m. at the One Social Club, 123 E. Wilson St., with a chance to meet the coaches and network with other attendees. It is free to attend; registration is required.
A full list of events and links for registration for Voices and Dreams Academy can be found on Midwest Mujeres’ website.
