The Mission Institute has announced the appointment of Myriam Hernandez Jennings as its new program director.
Courtesy Photo
Myriam Hernandez Jennings
Hernandez Jennings comes with a background in public health and community well being, and has most recently worked at the Massachusetts Coalition of Domestic Workers as its director of policy and organizing. Born in Chile, she credits the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet with catalyzing her active and lifelong commitment to community organizing and social, political and economic justice. She has more than 15 years of experience applying the theory and praxis of liberation theology in the public health field, including leading the Massachusetts Alliance on Teen Pregnancy, as its executive director, and in her role as the national project director for the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Teenage Pregnancy Prevention project; working as the director of diversity and health equity center at the JSI Research and Training Institute in Boston; and being a board member of the feminist collective Our Bodies Ourselves, where she edited the first Spanish edition of its best-selling guide to women’s health and well being.
Hernandez Jennings has a Master of Theology degree from Andover Newton Theological School, and is a member of the Racial Justice Task Force for the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ. She has helped to facilitate a townwide initiative, Natick is United, that develops and implements strategies to help the community envision and become an antiracist town.
“I was brought up in a community that taught me that when you care for others, you satisfy your heart. My commitment to racial, social justice and equity for all is my calling ‘to hold God’s people in my heart.’ I am excited to join the Mission Institute team because the job aligns so well with my values, my beliefs and how I want to live in the world. There is an urgency now more than ever to no longer be indifferent to what divides us, but to side with our shared destinies, in the name of our common humanity,” she said in an announcement from the Mission Institute.
Learn more about the Mission Institute at http://themissioninstitute.org.