MIDLAND, Texas (KMID/ KPEJ) – Several Latina women are coming together in the Permian Basin to help other women feel empowered, believe in themselves and strive to become a business owner.
ABC Big 2’S Ozzy Mora met with the women who will lead and participate in the first Empoderada Conference and Market on Saturday, April 1 at the Bush Convention Center in Midland.
The smell of freshly made crêpes, cafecito or coffee drifts through a 400 square foot trailer parked most of the time near 42nd street and Henderson Avenue in Odessa.
“There’s not many business owners that are young or in this age range,” said small business owner Crystal Ortega.
Ortega is 20 years old, but at the age of 17, she was given an opportunity to own and manage a crêpe and coffee food truck. It’s called Crystal’s Crêpes and Coffee.
We asked Ortega what challenges she has faced being a young small business owner.
“Managing everything, from social life to running the business to keeping up and furthering my education,” she said.
Now, Ortega will share her journey as a young Latina business owner at the Empoderada Conference and Market event.
“I’m going to be speaking about how I got here, running this business, managing my mental health and I hope other business owners will be motivated by my story,” said Ortega.
Empoderada which translates to empowered was put on by a group of local Latina business owners.
“I think that girls run the world,” said event coordinator and small business owner Cinnamon Casanova.
Casanova runs an online clothing shop catered for plus size women.
“If you look good you feel good , if you feel good you do good [and] that’s how I also think of my own business,” said Casanova. “It’s very empowering to put something on your body that completely changes our mindset and give you that empowerment [and] for our conference our logo or motto is empowered women, empower women.”
She said it’s important to have events like these to help women feel motivated, ambitious, believe in themselves and break the stigma.
“In the Hispanic culture, there’s very much the idea of a woman having a specific place and very specific role and that’s her life that’s what she does [and] it’s a very important thing to break that mindset, “ Casanova said.
Other business owners will speak. They include a woman owned oil field business, and a licensed medical professional.
Tickets are still available, but only 120 people are allowed to attend and up to 30 vendors can get a spot at this event.
The conference is from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The market is from 12: p.m. to 3:00 p.m.
You can get your tickets by following this link: https://linktr.ee/thelatinxhustle
