Gender Relations Committee Unveils Plan


For Immediate Release
February 21, 2006
Contact: Anthony Garcia, 516-860-9285
New York, NY - The Gender Relations Committee (GRC) unveils its proposed plan of action to address pertinent issues facing the Latino and Multicultural communities with respect to representation, identity, and misogyny. The GRC is comprised of National Council members of La Unidad Latina, a Latino-based fraternity. Vice President, Hermano Christian Pena, is chairman of the committee.

On January 5th, 2006, National leadership representatives from eight Latina and Multicultural Sororities attended a presentation hosted by La Unidad Latina in New York City. The presentation aimed at highlighting the GRC’s overall goals. The dialogue between the organizations allowed for the development of specific GRC initiatives, to be carried out and open to the greater Latino/Multicultural communities.
Gender Relations Committee Unveils Plan
The GRC’s first initiative is the increase of awareness of the prevalent issues facing their communities. Specifically, efforts to reach out and promote the message of gender awareness have begun through La Unidad Latina’s network of chapters throughout the country. Programming at the chapter level, will address and foster discussion on the issues. In addition, the GRC will also be hosting a workshop for the national leadership of Latino fraternities. The unprecedented workshop will be funded by La Unidad Latina and be held in New York City on March 25th, 2006. The workshop will, in part, be facilitated by Dr. Nicole Trujillo-Pagan, Associate Professor of the Department of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College, CUNY. Dr. Trujillo-Pagan will define gender sensitivity to our organizations and provide consultation on how we can continue to build awareness on the topic within our organizations.

The second initiative of the GRC is to make gender awareness a salient component to La Unidad Latina’s culture. To achieve this, the leadership of La Unidad Latina, on all levels, will participate in gender sensitivity training. Adding to this, similarly focused training workshops will be implemented at the Annual Fraternity Retreat, a mandatory event for all new Hermanos. There will also be some infrastructure changes to the organization to bolster the initiative.
La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Incorporated was established on February 19, 1982 in order to address the shortcomings of academic institutions in meeting and addressing the needs of Latino students in higher education.

The GRC committee and the National Council of La Unidad Latina would like to thank the contributing and supporting organizations: Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad/Lambda Pi Chi Sorority Inc., Latinas Poderosas Unidas/Lambda Pi Upsilon Sorority Inc., Lambda Theta Alpha Latin Sorority Inc., Lambda Theta Nu Sorority Inc., Mu Sigma Upsilon Sorority Inc., Omega Phi Beta Sorority Inc., Omega Phi Chi Multicultural Sorority Inc., Sigma Iota Alpha Inc., and Sigma Lambda Upsilon/Senoritas Latinas Unidas Sorority Inc.


Hermano Anthony J. Garcia
Director of Public Relations,
National Council
agarcia@launidadlatina.org