WHO WE ARE
LWB was founded in the fall of 2010 and became an official student organization on OU's campus in the spring of 2014. As of 2014, the organization transitioned from "Latinas Without Borders" to "Latinos Without Borders", expanding its services to both females and males due to the need in the community.
Since the beginning, we have been committed to empowering young Latinos in the Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Edmond, and Norman area while providing them with resources that will allow them to succeed on their path towards a higher education. As an organization, we are very excited to see students attend our events, be educated, and leave with the tools necessary to be who they want to be all while representing our Latino population well.
Since the beginning, we have been committed to empowering young Latinos in the Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Edmond, and Norman area while providing them with resources that will allow them to succeed on their path towards a higher education. As an organization, we are very excited to see students attend our events, be educated, and leave with the tools necessary to be who they want to be all while representing our Latino population well.
WHAT WE DO
Latinos Without Borders is an organization that holds an annual conference and camp to reach out to Latino high school students in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Norman, and Edmond to empower them to pursue a higher education and become leaders in their community. The percentage of Hispanic high school graduates that enroll in college has historically been lower than any other racial or ethnic group. However, recent data shows that Latinos are now enrolling in college at a higher rate than any other group. 70% of recent Latino high school graduates had enrolled in college; this is only true for 66% of Whites and 56% of African Americans. The problem now is that they are not graduating. Despite the high enrollment rate, less than 1 out 10 Latinos has earned a bachelor’s degree. This low number can be attributed to the simple lack of knowledge faced by many Hispanic families. Many of these Latinos are first-generation students so neither they nor their parents are fully aware of what is needed to go to college. Many do not have access to information regarding deadlines or scholarship opportunities so college success becomes less attainable. Other dominate issues leading to college dropout include family gender roles, low self-esteem, marriage, economic status, and undocumented status.
The 2016 conference was be held on March 4th at the University of Oklahoma from 8am-5pm. We invited up to 300 Hispanic high-school students from the Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Norman, and Edmond area who are in 9th or 10th grade, to OU for this one-day conference.The goal of the conference is to educate high-school Latinos about the importance of an education, a college degree, and self-empowerment.
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Participants will also be given the opportunity to attend the Fall Camp, which will be held October 21-23, 2016 on OU's campus. This camp will be a continuation of the one-day conference which will offer the committee and volunteers more time to connect with the participants while providing more resources that will help them on their journey to college and a successful future. CHECK OUT THE WELCOME TAB FOR THE APPLICATION LINK!
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250 high school students from Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Norman, and Edmond attended the Spring 2014 conference |
53 men and women from all over Oklahoma attended the LWB Fall 2015 Camp! |