Karla Nicole Barrera (Colombia, Northampton Community College, Early Childhood Education, 2022-23) knew she wanted a career in education ever since she was a child. When she was in elementary school, Karla played teacher to kids in her neighborhood, educating them about the things she learned in school and even sending them homework to review for the following day. When she finished primary school, Karla enrolled in the Escuela Normal Superior, a public school designed to train future teachers. When she was just ten years old, she began taking classes related to pedagogy, which eventually led to Karla realizing her dream of becoming an educator. After finishing high school, she studied two more years at a school in an intensive pedagogical program and graduated with honors. In January 2022, she had her first experience working as a kindergarten English teacher in a school, and that was, as she decided to call it, “The first day of the rest of my life”.
In July of 2022, Karla’s life forever changed when she began her journey in the CCI Program, studying Early Childhood Education. One of her favorite memories from the program is attending the Pathways to Success Program (PSP), a mid-year celebration that brings the CCI cohort together for networking, workshops, cultural exchange, and more. Karla recalls feeling especially motivated after listening to the panel of CCI alumni speakers, which marked a “before and after” experience in her life.
Since graduating from the CCI Program in spring of 2023, Karla is already finding success in her field. Upon returning to Colombia and continuing her university studies, Karla has started two initiatives in the field of education. The first project, called Edu-K, is a non-profit organization that Karla envisioned with Eduard Tovar, a fellow international student at Northampton Community College. After realizing they shared common interests in community service, music service within the church, and volunteering, Karla and Eduard decided to contribute to their community. Edu-K seeks to generate initiatives to mitigate the impact of social crises in Colombia and worldwide. Their purpose is to make alliances with other non-profit organizations to give visibility to their initiatives and promote volunteering for children, youth, and adults. They are currently working to offer free language classes for low-income people, donations of clothing, food, and school supplies for underserved communities, initiatives for recycling and reusing solid waste, leadership talks, and cultural exchange.
The second project Karla is working on is called Miss Karla to Learn, which she created to make use of social networks among other virtual platforms to promote quality education, focused mainly on teaching English and Spanish as foreign languages. The idea arose from Karla’s community impact project, which she called “A Musical Adventure”. For her community impact project, Karla incorporated playful and innovative pedagogical activities using art, music, and recycling to teach Spanish as a foreign language at Lehigh Valley Academy: “My objective is to share educational strategies, teaching tips, personalized workshops, and innovative activities that are different from the traditional methodology so that communities of teachers can innovate their teaching processes and thus achieve meaningful learning in their students, making use of the transversality of languages. I am currently finishing the entire preparation process so that it can be published this August.”
In addition to the two initiatives, Karla has received two national awards. She received the first award at an event called The Night of the Best, a ceremony that recognizes leaders that contribute to the Educational System in Colombia. Karla was also awarded by the Colombian Ministry of National Education for obtaining one of the highest scores in her country on the SaberPro tests, which are carried out in Colombia for all students who wish to obtain a title in various fields. In addition, Karla was awarded the Sol de Aquino Merit by La Universidad Santo Tomás, being one of the three best averages in her field of study in the entire country, and the only one in her city to receive this recognition. Furthermore, Karla has received a scholarship of more than 50%, which allows her to continue her dream career.
As a new CCI alumni, Karla’s journey is even more impressive and inspiring. Not only is she accomplishing her childhood dream of becoming a teacher, but Karla is giving back to the people in her community in so many ways. In closing, Karla states, “I feel very happy and grateful for all the wonderful opportunities that CCI put in my way, gave me unique abilities, taught me to believe in myself, and fueled my desire to achieve a change in society through Education. These weeks I have been invited to give talks and interviews about my experience in the program and my life story with my mother, Milena Caicedo, who has been a single mother, my greatest support, my role model, and who has helped me out despite the difficulties. It gives me great joy to see how many children and young people see an inspiration in me and I have managed to motivate them to improve themselves, get out of their comfort zone, and be active leaders to change the world.”
Written by Holly Calhoun, Alumni Relations & Communications Coordinator