CU Engage student Fernanda Cerros receives President’s DEI Award for impactful work

 

 

   
We know this can be done. When I picture what the world could be, there is so much incentive to keep fighting.”

- Fernanda Cerros

Whether she’s leading a group of middle school students identifying root causes of problems in their community or taking Latine high schoolers around the CU Boulder campus, there is a strong magnetism around Fernanda Cerros.

A recent graduate in international affairs and political science, Cerros is fired up for her next chapter thanks to the inspiring experiences that fell outside of her major coursework—in CU Engage, the center for community-based learning and research-based in the School of Education.

Through CU Engage programs like the Aquetza academic summer program, Public Achievement and Puksta Scholars, Cerros studied and honed her leadership skills. She discovered her passion for collective efforts to advance justice in her communities and found a sense of belonging at CU Boulder.

Cerros’ enthusiasm permeates the conversation as she speaks about her work with Public Achievement, the youth-led civic engagement and social justice program that pairs undergraduate students with K-12 students interested in identifying and addressing issues affecting their communities.

In spring 2022, a Public Achievement team piloted the Boulder Valley School District’s first-ever youth-led ethnic studies course at Centaurus High School in Lafayette. Later, Cerros and other youth organizers co-created the Youth Ethnic Studies for Colorado project, or YES4CO, with youth to move the course from vision to fruition.

YES4CO leaders have focused on teach-ins centering the history, culture and experiences of Black, Indigenous and other people of color. With funding from the Broncos Foundation and leveraging a long-standing partnership between Public Achievement and the Lafayette Youth Advisory Council, YES4CO leaders recommended that the City of Lafayette expand and institutionalize an ethnic studies curriculum in local public schools. YES4CO established a model for youth led community-based change that has encouraged leaders like Cerros to keep working toward a more just world.

“We know this can be done,” Cerros said. “When I picture what the world could be, there is so much incentive to keep fighting.” Soraya Latiff, former co-director of Public Achievement, describes Cerros as the light that inspires her peers and mentees. Latiff co-nominated Cerros for the 2024 CU President’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, which recognized Cerros out of a large pool of student leaders from across all four CU campuses for her work helping young people activate their voices.

“Fernanda leads from a place of revolutionary love, a choice to labor on behalf of, for and with others, ourselves and those who might oppose us,” Latiff said. “It is putting in the work today that you might not see or reap the benefits of and requires deep commitment to the possibility of a different world that centers the human dignity, freedom and care for all peoples in the systems that come.”

After graduation, Cerros became the program manager for Colorado Changemakers Collective, a nonprofit organization she worked with during her studies. The collective trains locals as “Promotoras”—trusted community liaisons who bridge the gap between residents and social services to help address the needs of their neighborhoods, like supporting youth programs or mobilizing the Latine community toward climate action.

Cerros continues to lead with revolutionary love. Through her community-engaged work at CU Boulder, she found solace and inspiration to keep going even when social change felt heavy. “I have to remember that there is no doing too little or doing too much—there is just doing something,” she said. “I share this with the youth I work with, who feel particularly powerless. Being able to do something is empowering and reminds you that you do have power to create change.”