Eventos y colaboraciones / Events and collaborations

International Recognition - Woman of the Year, New York 2024 

La Nacional, Spanish Benevolent Society NYC

Meet our women honorees

Hon. Carmen Velasquez is a Supreme Court Justice serving in the 11th district of the State of New York since January 2015. She has also served as judge for the New York City Civil Court of Queens County previously to her election. Justice Carmen Velasquez emigrated from her native country of Ecuador at age 14. Without speaking a single word of English, she began her formal studies with a goal towards becoming an attorney. Justice Carmen Velasquez was a founding member and Past President to Latino Lawyers of Queens County, was Co-Chair of the Judicial Council of the Hispanic National Bar Association, and was Vice-President of the Latino Judges Association. Justice Velasquez is presently an Advisory Board member of the Latino Lawyers Association, Immediate Past President of the Association of Supreme Court Justices of the State of NY, G-100 Global Chair,Committee. 

Dr. : Pachauri, MD, PhD, DPH, is a Director & Climate-Health Mentor of the POP Movement, where POP stands for Protect Our Planet. As a public health physician, Dr. Pachauri has been extensively engaged with research on family planning, maternal and child health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, HIV and AIDS, and poverty, gender and youth. In 1996, she joined as Regional Director, South and East Asia, Population Council and established its regional office in New Delhi which she managed until 2014. In 2011, she was awarded the prestigious title of Distinguished Scholar, an honor rarely bestowed. She has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the Maharishi International University, Iowa in 2022.

Helen Arteaga is Chief Executive Officer at New York City Health + Hospitals/Elmhurst. She is the former Assistant Vice President, Queens Network and Executive Initiatives at Urban Health Plan, a network of community health centers located in three boroughs in New York City. Helen is Ecuadorian and a long-time resident of Corona, Queens. Helen grew up understanding the role that health care had on a community. She dreamed of establishing a community health center that would provide quality health care to local residents. Following the death of her community activist father, she set out to build that health center in her beloved Corona. Working with Our Lady of Sorrows Church and other community leaders, she sought out Paloma Hernandez, the President and CEO of Urban Health Plan, Inc., to make her dream a reality. 

Tonie McKenzie (Tonie Jade Deleon McKenzie) is a researcher and primary care doctor at the Institute for Family Health. A native of Jamaica and raised in Brooklyn, she attended Midwood High School and subsequently received her Bachelor's in Biology at the Johns Hopkins University. After taking some time off to teach high school students, she went back to school to get her medical degree from Stony Brook University School of Medicine. Currently, she is pursuing her Master’s in Public health policy and management at the CUNY School of Public Health. Her other passions include writing for her blog and spending time with her children.

Myriam de Arteni (Myriam Sanchez-Posada de Arteni ) Former Senior Exhibition Conservator for The New York Public Library, was educated in Colombia, Italy (Rome and Florence) and the United States (New York and Rochester). Conservator of artifactual books, manuscripts, and art on paper. Researcher in the areas of the history of papermaking, materials and methods of writing and printing media and conservation treatment theory and practice. She has been working for 47 years for the New York Public Library as Art Conservator and Senior Exhibitions Conservator. She has pursued studies in Fine Arts (Master) , Art History and Conservation of Works of Art (specializing in conservation of works on paper) bookbinding and printing she authored numerous published papers on conservations and materials and techniques of art. She is co-founder of Sol Invictus Press (1992).

Susanne Mikhail Eldhagen (Egypt/Sweden) is the Regional Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) for the Arab States. In this capacity, she leads UN Women’s normative, programme and coordination work in the Middle East and North Africa. Susanne brings with her over 25 years of experience in development and humanitarian work in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Before, UN Women, she was the Director of Humanitarian Aid at the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Susanne is a strong advocate for peaceful resolutions of conflict through diplomatic engagements and building bridges. She has been recently supported “Bridging Cairo and New York” bringing female artists from Egypt, the US and others countries towards convergence through the arts. Susanne has previously received the Olof Palme Stipend for her work on preventive diplomacy, and has also received SIDAs Price “Guldspaden” for efficient financial management of resources, at the time when she managed SIDAs by far the largest portfolio of 16 billion SEK.

Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, Ph.D. New York University, is Distinguished Professor of Spanish-American literature and culture at the Graduate Center and the City College, CUNY, where she co-directs the Cátedra Mario Vargas Llosa.  She was the President of the Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana (IILI).  Chang- Rodríguez was the co-anchor of “Charlando con Cervantes,” a program of interviews with prominent personalities from the Hispanic world sponsored by CUNY-TV and the Instituto Cervantes. She is an Honorary Associate of the Hispanic Society of America, Doctor Honoris Causa from the National and Kapodistriac University of Athens, Greece, “miembro correspondiente” of the Academia Peruana de la Lengua, the recipient of the “Enrique Anderson Imbert,” Career Achievement Award of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE) and “miembro de número” of the ANLE, an affiliate of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language.

Dr. Harbeen Arora Rai, born in India, ALL Ladies League (ALL), Women Economic Forum (WEF), Women’s Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (WICCI), SHEconomy, G100 Club

Dr. Harbeen is the Founder of five free platforms viz. G100, ALL, WEF, SHEconomy and WICCI, ensuring women’s advancement in all walks of life with an integrated vision and inclusive values. With a powerful network of 500,000 women across 150 countries, and growing toward Mission Million 2024, these empowering ecosystems and sister platforms are among the largest global communities of women worldwide.

Marta Ana Diz, Ph.D. nació en Buenos Aires en 1942. Emigró a los Estados Unidos en 1967 y reside en Nueva York desde 1987. Enseñó literatura medieval, historia de la lengua, retórica y teoría literaria en la Universidad de Maryland (College Park) y en la Universidad de la Ciudad de Nueva York (CUNY). Ha publicado dos libros dedicados a la literatura medieval: uno sobre El conde Lucanor (1984) y otro sobre el culto mariano del siglo XIII (1995); y una treintena de ensayos en revistas especializadas de Argentina, Chile, Colombia, España, Estados Unidos y México, en su mayoría sobre obras medievales y ocasionalmente sobre arte contemporáneo norteamericano. Es miembro de número de la Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (ANLE) y correspondiente de la Real Academia Española.

Carmen Arboleda, Presidenta de Ecuador News, prensa que ha brindado servicio a la comunidad por aproximadamente 30 años. El periodico empezó con el Dr. Marcelo Arboleda Segovia involucrándose mucho en temas de la comunidad ecuatoriana. Era invitado habitual a todo tipo de celebraciones, incluyendo las de carácter político. Arboleda heredó tal talento y apoyaba todas las reuniones de ecuatorianos en el área tri-estatal, en una de las cuales conoció a Carmen Barrera, que también frecuentaba los salones sociales y ya había labrado un nombre de importancia en la ciudad. su ilusión era abrirse camino en Nueva York. Lo logró a plenitud desde el primer instante en que conoció a su esposo y desde ahí comenzaron a trabajar juntos informando a la comunidad a través de la presa.

Laura Fente González, Junior school specialist,  Spanish teacher at the United Nations School, New York. Laura Fente, originally from Spain, graduated from her native country at the University of Granada, in 1988. Laura worked in the public schools at Los Angeles Unified School District, California, from 1989 to 2000, mainly with Hispanic students from disadvantaged social classes under the Bilingual Education Act (BEA) Program, also known as the Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education. Such a program recognized the needs of limited English speaking ability (LESA) students, and was designed to meet the special educational needs of elementary and secondary school students not fluent in the English language. It also recognized the need for and value of bilingual education programs in U.S. public education.

We would like to express our special thanks to the press for their coverage of the event, especially to:

bi/Coa coordinator:  "Woman of the Year 2024", New York RAW Rosalia Arteaga Foundation

Video Lcdo. Gustavo Espinoza: Noticias Hudson Valley NY

Victoria Freire Press Correspondent Cultura Press España

Press Release / Nota de prensa:  QueensLatino.com