About the Name, Logo, & Inspiration

The idea of VUELA was contrived by Founder/CEO, Alexis DiPrima, as a junior in high school. As a proud Mexican-American advocate, she had started a student organization by the name of Hispanic Youth Leadership Council (HYLC) at her school as a sophomore after having been subject to discrimination as one of the few Latina students within her advanced classes and extracurriculars as a freshman. Wanting to increase representation of high-achieving Latinx students and work towards closing the Hispanic Student Achievement Gap, she led the club as President until graduating, organizing opportunities such as college fairs/information sessions, volunteer events, cultural spirit weeks, empowerment seminars, and a State Senate campaign internship. Wanting to reach a broader audience of trailblazers on a more widespread level, the concept of an international consulting nonprofit came to her. The first picture that came to mind with this idea was a purple butterfly---a color that symbolizes ambition and an image she had encountered at several positive turning points in her life. The word "vuela" means "to fly" in Spanish, a name that she thought would pair perfectly with the logo idea to symbolize "flying" above limitations, stereotypes, and barriers. She has since added five butterflies surrounding the purple one in the middle to symbolize various different types of advocacy that are known to impact marginalized groups: a pink one for feminism, an orange one for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) empowerment, a blue one for education and mental health awareness, a rainbow one for the uplifting of various cultural communities and individuals identifying as LGBTQ+, and a green one for environmentalism---all of which go to show how diverse the advocacy that VUELA ignites is.

Visionaries Uniting & Empowering Leaders of America (VUELA) is a non-for-profit, youth-led grassroots organization aimed at mentoring passionate adolescents from 7th-12th grade. Through completely free, monthly Zoom trainings, eligible young people will be trained by experienced youth organizers, college students, and guest keynote speakers to become effective leaders, upstanders, and active participants in their communities throughout the course of a school year. They will also receive step-by-step instruction on how to get involved and/or start and run their own advocacy-based organizations, including school clubs, youth advisory councils, and nonprofits. Once our members receive ample leadership guidance and learn about what it means to be civically engaged, they will be granted the opportunity to work with some of our partner organizations (for their individual enrichment and/or to enhance their organizations) and fundraise with grams provided by VUELA to earn money for their initiatives. Profit would be split 50/50 between VUELA and the member, and the member would be free to put their share towards the organization they fundraise for, while we would take ours to make monetary and supply donations (books, art materials, food, etc.) to underresourced communities throughout North and Central America.

While VUELA is very much an advisory organization, it is also a platform built up of the lived experiences of those within it. Members will be enabled to share what they are involved in (if anything, as having outside leadership integration is absolutely not a prerequisite) to compile a network of other potential activities to engage in, making VUELA a platform that empowers its members to get involved with pre-established organizations that align with their goals and values. Our executive board will also provide members with several resources regarding college applications and scholarships that they are free to share with others and/or utilize themselves. Dedicated members will additionally receive awards for their commitment to VUELA and completion of the year-long advisement program offered to them.