Introducing Yesenia!

Hi my name is Yesenia Soriano- Altamirano and I will be working with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth this summer to better understand the work that is happening here in our home state Kentucky.  I was born in Mexico, but Kentucky is my home and I believe that KFTC is working to make us a better state.  I truly believe that if you love something then you shouldn’t ignore its weaknesses, but rather help it to grow and change. I love Kentucky so I want it to be the best that it can be for its people.

I first heard of KFTC through my work at Celts which is our Center for Excellence in Learning through Service at Berea College.  At Celts, we focus on working with our community to provide services as well as address many issues within our communities like poverty and hunger. Celts does this by connecting with many community organizations and one of them included KFTC. After learning about some of the work that KFTC is doing I wanted to begin working with them and I was given an opportunity to intern here. I hope to learn how to empower people through grassroots initiatives because for a long time before Berea College I felt I didn’t have much power to make change happen in my community. However, as I have grown and learned I have realized that the people do and should have all the power. This is our state and it deserves better, I think our people deserve better.

There are many injustices I hope to help fight. One of them includes the overall poverty rate for children in Kentucky. For example, 22% of children under the age of 18 live in poverty and 14.7% of the people in Kentucky suffer from hunger and food insecurity. There seems to be this cycle of poverty we cannot end in Kentucky and it is all interconnected to some of the larger issues our communities face. But we can build grassroots power to change it.  It is important that we keep organizing and keep combating issues that lead to generational poverty. It is important to mobilize and protect our state from issues of pollution, racial injustice, and protect the voting rights of our community.  Kentuckians For The Commonwealth does so much and I hope to help them in expanding the message that they already have as well as bring more people that feel just as passionate as me or that want to learn and expand their knowledge.