Ailene Vayas

Teaching has always been my passion. I never thought to have another profession when I was young, and I'm still passionate about teaching. I started in my country, Puerto Rico, around 13-14 years there as a history teacher. Then I moved to the United States, here to North Carolina, Charlotte area, and started to teach Spanish. I love what I'm doing here with my students, not just teaching the language but sharing my culture. Overall, I teach my students how to respect and appreciate other cultures, other people different than them. I teach in a South Charlotte private school with wealthy students. But 5 years ago, I started to think about how I can help my community, living here in Charlotte as a Latino woman. I received this call to go back to school and do a master's degree in counseling, and now I'm transitioning to serve my Latino community with mental health services in Spanish. I work at La Community House, a private office where we help the Latino community with mental health, not just with counseling but also with education, consulting, and help with immigrants with assessments for the immigration process. Even though it's a private office, we offer low cost for the clients because our goal is to impact the community, even though they don't have the resources. As a Christian, I learned that when you are comfortable, that is time to see what is your new calling. I was comfortable in my country teaching my Puerto Rican students, and I received the call to go to the United States and do something different. Now, 5 years ago, I was comfortable in my job, in my school, working with my students, and again I received that calling that it's time to be uncomfortable again, to do something different that challenges me to serve others in another way.