With nearly a decade of experience as a Boricua community educator in the city of Waterbury, Roslyn Cecilia's (she/her) work has focused primarily on engaging youth, families and practitioners in critical learning about race, culture, gender & sexuality as it relates to the liberation of historically oppressed communities.
Over the years, Roslyn has worked for and partnered with several organizations and academic institutions to facilitate meaningful dialogue and relationships that center radical love, powerful vulnerability and all the messiness that comes with our desire to acknowledge, heal and transform.
Roslyn began her career while completing her undergraduate education at the University of Connecticut. She developed and directed the LACE Youth Leadership Program – a state-funded, identity-affirming after school program that catered to the holistic development of Waterbury’s Puerto Rican youth. In April 2018, Roslyn served as the Community Educator & Organizer for the Queer Unity Empowerment Support Team (QUEST). Focused on creating healthy, equitable and safe spaces for the LGBTQIA+ community in the Greater Waterbury area, she created and facilitated original training curricula for youth, parents and practitioners and organized community events that prioritized joy, relationship building and collective healing. By the end of 2018, Roslyn conducted and published a local need assessment detailing the experiences of Waterbury's queer youth population and established, based on the results of that Needs Assessment and in alignment with the District's Racial Equity Policy, a partnership with the District to deliver ongoing trainings to school administrators, teachers and staff concerning queer cultural competency beginning in 2020. She now serves as the Director of Community Schools at Waterbury Bridge to Success whose mission is to achieve equitable change by empowering Waterbury’s children, youth, and families to be successful in school, career, and life. Roslyn directs the BOOST Community Schools Initiative at four PreK-8 schools, establishing, evaluating and providing third-party accountability to school-based partnerships that support the success and well-being of all students, families, school personnel and the community at large.
Outside of her "traditional jobs", Roslyn continues to invest in grassroots organizing efforts to support community learning and coalition building. She is the founder of and curator for the Boricua Book Club, a virtual space for Boricuas of all intersecting identities to center Puerto Rican-created content and stories. As a result of the Book Club, Roslyn is also the co-founder of Colectivo Bámbula - a coalition of Anti-racist Eduvists cultivating Puerto Rican liberation politic, artistry and scholarship with the intent to re-imagine and honor ancestral knowledge and work towards the decolonization of the past, present and future. She is also the co-founder of Waterbury Empowers the People to ACT! (WEPA), organizing Latinxs in Waterbury around an anti-racist agenda to support Black Lives
Roslyn is an active blogger for My Reflection Matters, writing on best practices for bringing conversations of race, gender and sexuality into the classroom. She is an artist. Her paintings highlight the beauty, divinity and diversity of human sexuality, specifically for femme-identifying bodies. She spends her free time twerking in any and all public spaces, laughing obnoxiously with loved ones as a form of healing, listening to La Lupe classics, and - as an Aquarius Sun, Gemini Moon and Libra Rising - analyzing everyone's natal chart........sometimes without consent!!!
LEARN MORE ABOUT ROSLYN'S WORK
My work is about supporting folks who are committed to radical honesty and vulnerability.
I don't care if your honesty is messy or ugly. I care that it is present, it is intentional, it is real, it is accountable.
I have time for tough conversations. I don't have time for derailment.