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Tampa woman helping others find a better life
Mark Wilson reports
WIMAUMA, Fla. - A woman who grew up experiencing poverty in the Dominican Republic is now helping Latina women in the Tampa Bay Area become entrepreneurs.
Liz Gutierrez's family came to the U.S. for a better life, and now she's helping others find a better life too.
"When you help a woman create economic mobility and security. You improve the quality of life of her home as well as community," explained Gutierrez.
Gutierrez is the founder and CEO of Enterprising Latinas.
"Tampa Bay is a wonderful place to live," said Gutierrez. "It's a wonderful place to work. But if you don't have the type of economic security that is required at the individual or even family level, then the quality of life in the community, everybody feels that, everybody hurts."
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Gutierrez started the organization nine years ago to help women in the Wimauma community.
"For every dollar earned by a white male in the economy. A white woman will make $0.83. A Black woman will make $0.77, and Latinas make $0.54," she shared.
She said according to a report by the United Way about 60 percent of the Latino population lives in poverty.
The organization started in the Wimauma community.
"That's a huge number, and it affects the quality of life of everyone. And so we can't talk about creating a thriving Tampa Bay community without having a thriving Latino community," Gutierrez explained.
The program teaches skills, to help students become entrepreneurs and eventually lift them out of poverty.
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"We connect community prosperity to the prosperity of women," said Gutierrez. "So we understood that it wasn't enough for us to help women get on that path to economic prosperity if we didn't change the conditions in the community."
The community is coming together to turn small dreams into big successes.
Students learn how to become entrepreneurs.
"It really is about all of us coming together and making a decision to create a change so that everyone could have an opportunity," explained Gutierrez.
The organization is opening the doors of economic opportunities for Latina women to help transform their lives for a better future. In nine short years, Gutierrez and her team have helped hundreds of women discover economic success.
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