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By way of, hi, I'm Nia cruise Carrington. I am Athena by way of my parents being born in Puerto Rico,

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although I was born in Germany. So that makes me a little bit of everything. I have lived in Delaware for 21 years on and off,

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so I've just totally dated myself. I speak English and Spanish. I used to speak German in great. English is my third language.

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Spanish is actually my fourth. At home. We speak English and Spanish and it worked. I use both English and Spanish primarily. As a role model.

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I've always viewed my mom and my grandmother as one of my most firm role models. I see what they went through and what they did to get us

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to where we are today and how fearless they weren't every movement. My biggest motivator to be a success or my children,

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I have three of them, and I figured what better way to have them move forward in life than to have myself. And as an example,

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if I set myself up with the challenge that I can't meet or exceed, then they'll feel the same. So I want them to always grew

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up knowing that no matter what, you can face a challenge, you can overcome it. Nothing can really stand in your way.

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I worked for the dollar Breast Cancer Coalition. I am officially their outreach manager, but that entails being

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an advocate for the Latino women, educating women on breast health and breast cancer issues. Serving on state policymaking boards to

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help ensure that that let the inner voice is always heard. And having to really go out and identify women who are at

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risk and making sure that we remove or eliminate as many access barriers to care that they might have or you're not hearing.

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I was recommended for this position at the dollar Breast Cancer Coalition by my brother-in-law who saw a posting at the University of Delaware

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while he was a student. At the time I was Mrs. Puerto Rico of Delaware 2005. And the platform for that

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Paget was breast health, breast cancer, breast cancer awareness. So it actually fit the bill, although I'd never worked

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in anything like this before. And up until that time, I had never been affected by breast cancer in my family directly.

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This job has helped me grow as a person in the sense that I've become more grounded. I've, I find myself becoming more and more grateful each

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day and seeing the unique challenges that the Hispanic community faces, I find myself becoming more civically involved up until this job,

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although I'd always had a voice somewhere, I've never really had a purpose to that voice. And then finding out that there are

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so many women here in Delaware who just simply lack the education to know simple, simple things that are out there. It really gave me the, um,

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from the movement that I needed to really make sure that their voices are heard. When I started looking for

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statistics and found that everybody else is counted by Hispanics. Why not? What are the fastest growing population

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in the state of Delaware? And it really gave me the gusto and the freedom and the courage to really look at the,

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the government makers in their face and challenge them and say, Why aren't you counting us? What do you need so that we can count it?

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And really taking that to the next level by asked, by being asked to serve on so many boards and committees to do so.

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The biggest challenge that I have found for not having my story told or being able to be told or having

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an on hearable voice is that not many women are willing to share their stories. The stories that you

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normally hear, the stories of, of disenchantment and distant, distant. Just franchise men and minus 1 of empowerment.

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I've never the way that I was brought up, I was never told because you're a woman, something's going to be different because your brown

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something's going to be different because you speak with an accent, something's going to be different. I was always told if it's yours,

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it's up to you to get it. No one's going to hand it to you on a silver platter. You've got to work hard,

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but you've simply got to be work you have to work hard because that's how bad you want it. So I guess what makes minds so

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different is the fact that I, myself personally have face so many challenges as other women have. But I've taken those challenges and

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use them as my fuel to move me forward to the next level. We all make mistakes. We all get knocked down

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the purposes to lands so that you can stand back up and keep going and make sure that that doesn't impact your future. And you don't say dictated to your pass.

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My story is unique in comparison to other women's stories because mine is like a multi-million dollar blockbuster movie.

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When I sell it, I will become a millionaire. Pretty much you name it. I've been there anything that you could have had a PSA on? I've probably gone through I'm still here,

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I still stand, I still laugh. My faith is what keeps me grounded as well as my family. And that's common for us

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Luthien as we always have that faith. I'm nosy, I always have that family there. Up until this morning. I never considered myself a feminist until

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I actually saw this question and thought about it. And when I thought about it, I guess sort of I

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am in the sense that I do believe that women should take control over their own lives and take control over the things

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that impact them directly. I don't think that women should have their points of view dictated by someone asked,

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Do I think that women today should be more involved in feminist activism and women's rights issues. Definitely. I definitely believe

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that if we don't open our mouths to speak on our own half, we're never going to be heard. I do believe that as dienes need to find

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the right voice and unite our voices and stand true and solidarity. In things that impact us directly. Do we have any other questions?

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Would you like me to speak on anything else? You want me to speak on anything else? Anything else? Think of anymore. Your family?

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Sure. A little bit about my family life is I was married for 12 years. You got married very young, as

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it was tradition in my family. I have three young children and they are 12, 9, and 6 currently. They do a lot of work here at the DBC,

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stay with me in volunteering for our special events. They love to do tickets that are blue accident which is coming up in April.

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We are we're one-quarter of a one because we're a package of four. So my mother has been the head of our family, my father, although he was

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always there, was a pediatrician. My mother was a lawyer. She worked for the City of Wilmington. So I guess that's the reason why I never

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viewed as an extra part. It was just an always a part of me. It was just, if anything, that's my little q to get in there,

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especially when I would find out that, Oh, I can get paid work and I speak two languages yay, as like the best this part.

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But again, in retrospect, going back to how this job has helped me grow as a person, I don't think that I could be as

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effective as The human, as a mother, as a sister, as a family, as a friend. If I didn't interact

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with the women that I interact with, if I didn't see such, the desperate need to have not only people, but to have education,

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to have an understanding, to have a command of the language. And that even though right now the biggest thing is,

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is the language issue and other issues related to Hispanics. It's that there are people out there who are willing to

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help and there are people out there who do do this out of the kindness of their hearts. It's a call of service. So I am, in a sense,

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the servant to my community and I've been so for a very long time. And it's an honor more than it is a privilege to help fellow Athena us.

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More about your your impact. My impact and influence. This isn't Mrs. Puerto Rico of Delaware, 2005,

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were that I got a chance to really bring a platform of empowerment to teenage girls, young teenage girls. And they didn't really understand that there

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was so much complex about being a Latina and being an American Life lina, that total disconnect between

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I want to do it, my American friends do, but our heritage dictates that you do these certain things and the amount of

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just confusion that was surrounding that and how I can do that because I really don't speak English too well and it's like,

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well, just try harder or they don't hire me because of that or it's I'm selling myself. Sure. You are in a sense,

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but you're also doing a greater good and sometimes you just have to balance the two out. Is it really worth

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the extra paint because you can speak the language or is it worth being able to help someone else? The year that I spent

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promoting the platforms of being this is Puerto Rico of Delaware, was a phenomenal year. I mean, it was great just

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seeing all the little kids going. I want to be her when I grow up, I'm writing down in the parade and everything it was,

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it was truly remarkable experience and I recommend anybody who's ever had any interest in doing anything like that.

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It wasn't so much about the beauty. It was about being able to represents an entire culture and present it appropriately and

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adequately and wanting to be there, There's a difference. You can see the passion and what people wanna do.

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That also sprung board with my springboard to becoming an advocate in another sense of the word, I'm an advocate now for breast cancer

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and Latinas with breast cancer. But I was also a parent advocate for a biomedical company because my youngest daughter was

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a premature baby and she needed a drug that was specifically designed to help combat a disease. And we were told no.

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So I became a parent advocate into which I would go around nationwide, countrywide, including Puerto Rico and

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some parts of Canada to go and speak to clinicians, health care workers. I even had the wonderful opportunity

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to speak to the researchers who developed this drug and share my story, my story, I had a healthy baby who was born, who got sick, who needed

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this and this drug wasn't around. Then I had a sick baby who stayed healthy, who needed this drug and we fought very hard to get this.

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And so that has also working here and doing the work that I do here at the WCC has definitely, I think it's bringing me

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full circle to my continuum. And it's reminding me that no matter how far I get, I always have to come back.

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Like I'm I used to joke. I lived in bear. We worked in downtown Wilmington like I went to school in Wilmington.

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I moved out to Maryland where I work seventh and Harrison Street. I move back to Delaware. Where am I now? Add an 11th and orange, and now I'm down in

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Jackson Street and I'm still here at 11000 orange. So it's no matter how far I went, I can't get too far away

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from my from my people. I love them and I hopefully they love me and I do a good job for them.

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So anything else you wanted to touch on? Here has been to me. Okay. Now, there goes the red cheeks. Yes, I'm currently engaged.

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I'm going to get married July the 11th. Knock on wood because we can't find a reception spot. But my husband to be

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is an executive with one of the local banks. And he and I had been approached to do a documentary about wheelchair dancing because my my fiance's in

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a wheelchair where what you call them mixed partner double, not what you would normally see in the media as in

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different races but mixes and he's in a wheelchair and I'm an able-bodied partner. And we do ballroom dancing and there's an upcoming

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documenting where there will be filming us regarding that. So that's something that we're very excited about.

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Although the dancing is intense, it's kinda like Dancing with the Stars, but till the tenth degree because you're not a star.

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So yeah, It's like Dancing with the Stars, but the episodes that they edit and that's what it is there. Anything else you guys, like I said,

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does another thing and like, well, we do freestyle dancing, so we'd like to go out to the nightclubs and just really,

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really dance and just live it up. So the ballroom dancing of the structure of it just takes away the fun of listening to the music and letting it go.

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Like them. One of the things that's often said is, I can't hear a drum without going for the shimmies.

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You hear the drum, the hips gotta move. So hearing that and having to structure our dance steps to account is really different for me.

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So I'm the one who's challenge there. I've learned if I don't follow the B, I will get run over. So yeah, to bruise need then I'm good to go.

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Anything else you'd like to discuss? What I love to sites that he likes the size of the best part about satisfying freestyle is I get to lead,

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so he decides to go wherever I put it. He more likes the Roomba and the cha-cha. So our official showcase dance will be the cha-cha,

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which is account dance. They put anything on you can count the cha-cha. But Friday, Saturday nights we

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listen that we're gonna do this outside the marine. We can decide summering a little bit of the budget that,

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but nothing that's forward and backwards too much. Can we dance because of the wheelchair? So now that you always know,

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I learned how to dance with my uncles and my, my father, my grandparents, our family as traditional Puerto Rican. So Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years,

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it was that music is what you hurt. You didn't hear anything in English. It was the old school, Bombay School, Blaine,

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as the says as emitting and then get on gumbo. We know all of their songs. If I'm finding out all stars,

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the level, all those types of music or the music that we were brought up with. And if you didn't

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want to sit on the couch thing, you had to dance and if they want to get stepped on the hand to learn how to move your feet.

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So my father and my uncles were the ones who told us, I don't know how to dance and how to appreciate that music.

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And luckily for me, both of my daughters are very interested in it, so they can they can find it out really, really easily.

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So any other question?