The first Florida League of Young Immigrants Festival, or FLYi Fest, is set to take place this Saturday, March 11, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus.
A joyful event inspired by the renowned Aspen Ideas Festival, the one-day outdoor fair and indoor speaking program is designed to provide new immigrant students with an easier transition into the community and empower them to succeed by linking them directly with local organizations and resources.
“The idea is to celebrate Miami culture,” said FLYi Fest founder Debora Gonzalez. “Miami is so diverse, so vibrant, that sometimes we feel a little bit lost when we first come. With this festival, we are bringing together organizations with the resources that recent immigrants need in order to prosper, but also to provide a Miami environment, a culture, to embrace the unity that our international community offers.”
The outdoor fair will take place in the breezeway of Building 2, where students from five of MDC’s campuses, most of whom are immigrants themselves, will establish mentorships with recent immigrant middle schoolers living in each campus’ vicinity. The project will offer role modeling, tutoring to improve English language skills and social support.
Music will be performed by Colombian singer-songwriter Valentina Rica, a Miami resident whose debut album, “Side by side,” was released last year by CdA Music Group. Local mixed media artist Samantha Perez will paint a mural. Free supplies kits, pizza, snacks and memorabilia will be dispensed throughout the day.
A nearby conference room has been reserved for speakers including author, accessible education advocate and former World Bank consultant Maria Carla Chicuen, a mentor of Gonzalez’s who in May 2016 published “Achieve the College Dream: You Don’t Need to be Rich to Attend a Top School.” Representatives from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and Americans for Immigrant Justice will also hold presentations.
Other participating organizations include MDC’s REVEST Program, Aid for Families in Need, Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Adult ESOL Program and the Miami Book Fair.
“We are bringing all of them together to offer a comprehensive overview of what the community has to offer for newly arrived individuals,” she said. “As people attend this festival, they get to communicate directly with different organizations and figure out what programs best fit their need.”
A senior at MDC’s School for Advanced Studies, Gonzalez faced many obstacles when she emigrated from Cuba with no English skills, a family struggling to pay rent and a younger sister with health conditions to look after. At age 12, she and her sister attended story readings at their local library to learn English.
Six years later she is bound for Harvard, a recent Hispanic Heritage Foundation Youth Award winner and one of a select group of students from around the world selected to attend leadership training through the Bezos Scholars Program in Aspen, Colorado, at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
“Debi realized that in some ways, despite her gifts, there was an element of luck [to her success], and she didn’t like the idea that luck played a such a role in meeting the right people and finding the right help,” said Jeff Dearing, AP language arts teacher at School for Advanced Studies, who accompanied Gonzalez on the week-long trip.
Upon returning to Miami, Gonzalez and Dearing decided to launch a festival to address that concern, and FLYi Fest was born.
“Kids like Debi believe in the American Dream,” he said. “And her worry was: How many people are disillusioned? How many more kids with this kind of potential, who maybe don’t have quite the determination but could have it if they just found someone who could spark it for them, end up stopping short of realizing their full potential? Everybody I talked to about this is so enthralled with her story and the values behind it that they want to be a part of the event.”
For more information, go to <www.FLYiFest.weebly.com>.
