Founded in March 2026 by sisters Daniela and Veronica Romo-Vargas
Created in response to the growing number of inaccessible, paid K-12 speech and debate programs that continue to foster inequalities within education.
As sisters from a family of migrant farmworkers, they created this organization to increase academic resources in the Central Valley and provide a safe space to center conversations of identity and intersectionality in academic debate.
Our Story
Our Mission
Our mission is to close the gap in academic debate between the rich and poor, and to provide equal opportunities for intersectionally marginalized students in the Central Valley to grow their academic and professional skills.
Our Philosophy
Marginalized youth are capable of becoming today’s leaders when granted admission to historically inaccessible educational programs.
We approach education as a tool for equalization and a mechanism for combating the long-standing harms of global racism, xenophobia, classism, and income inequality.
We believe in the empowerment of working-class youth and other historically marginalized groups through a free, community centered, and problem-posing educational approach.
Fundamentally, we believe in students. We believe in their right to an education without price tags.
Why
Join?
Students learn:
To be leaders in their communities and to think critically about real-world solutions to problems they experience first-hand through an ethnic studies-based debate curriculum that employs Ignatian pedagogy to raise critical consciousness.
Skills such as public speaking and critical thinking that can be used towards career readiness and advocacy.