Inspiring Latin American women to make their dreams come true

Yvonne Gonzalez is an artist from Chile who currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. She comes from a marginal neighborhood in Santiago called Villa Francia. Soon after she started working at the Thompson Street Playgroup, in SoHo in 1995, she discovered that she had a natural ability with children. In 2005, she created her own school, which now has two locations. The secret to her success? A dream made reality. A school with a revolutionary curriculum that is based on language, arts, science, social interaction and nature.

Gonzalez is not on the cover of Chile’s main newspaper. Neither is Lia Maldonado (19). Until seven months ago, she was a “Chilean Nini” — a young person who is “not in education, employment or training” or “Neet”. She didn’t have a job and or a college degree. But a social project inspired her to improve her life: for five months she trained as a coder with the entrepreneurial Laboratoria Chile. Now she is working and inspiring the second generation of Chilean coders in this program, who will start studying in March.

This is the beginning of HistoriasdeReinas.com, a project based on a website and social media to highlight the real “queens” like Gonzalez and Maldonado who are making their dreams come true and changing the world.

How do we inspire first Chilean women and then Latin American women to make their dreams come true? That’s the big question behind HistoriasdeReinas.com (the name translates as “Queens’ Stories”). It is a place to discover the stories of women who begin with a dream, continue with an idea and, with effort and perseverance, turn it into a reality.

As we know, mainstream media do not always feature good news and positive stories. Even less if they involve women; even less if you are not one of the “famous” people. Still, inspirational stories are out there in the street; it’s possible that around us many women are fighting for their dreams and making us say: “Wow, she’s awesome. She’s a Wonder Woman.”

People around the world are demanding positive journalism that inspires others, and in Chile many stories are not being covered by traditional media. These conditions create an opportunity to work with organizations and brands that are supporting campaigns to empower women, working on different issues.

HistoriasdeReinas.com wants to make history, just like its protagonists. This platform will be the place to form a community and share inspirational women’s stories. We want to create a platform because, as women, we are always searching the web looking for news that can be inspirational and shared.

Good news…is not news?

In Chile there are two successful examples of positive news websites: eldefinido.com and upsocl.com (Chile, Panamá and Colombia).

At the international level, several media outlets take this approach to news, the main one being Positive News (with an interesting business model, sharing with readers and more than 20 years of history), which includes news and interviews. Then we have Huffington Post Good News, APlus, Upworthy and Global Women Power, all of them with positive news and interviews with “heroes”. Encore Magazine and Reporthers include interviews with women who are leaders in their professional areas. Venezuela has Inspirulina and Everyday in Latinamerica. We also have Humans of New York on Facebook and Instagram, and the Podcast Women of the Hour with Lena Dunham, in which she interviews inspirational women.

If Ariana Huffington (creator of The Huffington Post) and Lena Dunham (creator of the TV show “Girls”) are involved in projects with women and inspiring news, we have to see the needs… Positive news affects mood, and people want to read “good news,” as stated in research from the University of Southampton in the UK in 2014. That research found that good news also gave people significantly higher motivation to take positive actions.

One of the most popular songs in the last few years was “Happy.” Can we share that feeling, happiness, through the stories of Latin American women? At HistoriasdeReinas.com we are convinced that yes, we can.

We welcome the real queens. We want to meet you and tell your stories.