Rachel Ramirez selected for Cultivate leadership program

Senior Organizer Rachel Ramirez was selected recently to participate in Cultivate, a yearlong mentorship program for women of color leaders.

Senior Organizer Rachel Ramirez (second from left) last year in Springfield with fellow staff, interns, and leaders from CCH’s Reentry Project.

Rachel, 27, organizes homeless Chicagoans through community reentry programs and shelters serving Spanish-speaking youth, families and adults. A Chicago Posse Foundation scholar who graduated from Pomona College, Rachel worked full-time while earning a master’s degree in public policy and administration last year from Northwestern University. She has worked at CCH for five years.

Fifteen women were selected this year to participate in Cultivate. The program is sponsored by Woods Fund Chicago, Chicago Community Trust, Chicago Foundation for Women, and Crossroads Fund.

“Cultivate seeks to build a cadre of emerging women of color leaders engaged in social, economic and racial justice movements and whose collective voice and power can be leveraged to realize a shared vision of the Chicago region’s future,” writes the Woods Fund, a foundation supporter of CCH’s organizing and policy work.

“By bringing together women who lead intersecting but separate justice efforts – gender and racial equity, labor rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights and immigrant rights, among others – Cultivate aims to transform these movements from the inside, fortify relationships among participants and foster collaborations across organizations to advance a shared vision towards equity and justice for all by supporting the personal and professional development needs of each participant.

“The foundation partners also hope that this work will build the institutions in which these women work by cultivating an intentional gender and racial equity lens and lead to the development of other women leaders within their organizations, especially at the community level.”

– Anne Bowhay, Media