George Sánchez-Tello
Program Manager & MVM Educator |
Sánchez-Tello is a teacher, writer, reporter, and community advocate from Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley. He currently teaches at California State University — Northridge in the department of Chicana and Chicano Studies. Sánchez-Tello earned his master’s degree in Chicano Studies from CSUN in 2012, where his thesis examined the social use of Mexican Son Jarocho among contemporary Chicana and Chicano communities. Recent writing covers soccer, public space, and the intersection of race and politics, as well as historical fiction.
His reporting has won awards for public service, investigative reporting, and feature writing as well as its use of the Freedom of Information Act. As a community advocate, Sánchez-Tello has organized and led community workshops with Young Storytellers, the Boyle Heights Arts Conservatory, and the Wilderness Society. In 2011, Sánchez-Tello helped create the San Gabriel Mountains Forever Leadership Academy, an organizer training program for the Los Angeles area and those working to protect the region’s remaining wilderness and public space. |
Yuri Nwosu
Partner Teacher at Lennox Middle School |
Yuri Nwosu has been a teacher at Lennox Middle School (LMS) for 12 years, but her ties to Lennox go beyond due to growing up in Lennox and attending LMS as a child. This connection to the community has been invaluable through her years of experience. She has taught an array of subjects: Language Arts, Reading Intervention, Mesoamerican Art and Culture, Social Studies, Computer Literacy, Yearbook and this upcoming school year will begin to teach a new Journalism course based on the MVM framework.
She received her B.A. in Liberal Studies from Loyola Marymount University in 2006 with a Multiple Subject Credential. Nwosu then earned her M.A. in Child and Adolescent Literacy in 2009, with an additional Reading Specialist Credential. Although her training is mainly in reading and writing instruction, her passion lies in helping her students become critical thinkers in any subject area. |
Tawnya Cervantes
MVM Educator |
Tawnya Cervantes was born and raised in East Los Angeles. In 2017 she graduated from the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media, and Communication at California State University – Northridge (CSUN), where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a minor in Creative Writing.
During her undergraduate years, Tawnya was a student reporter for The Sundial, a student publication at CSUN where she covered stories on the LGBTQ community and environmental issues. She was also the Editor in Chief of Scene Magazine, another student-run publication at CSUN. Driven by her interest in creative writing, she was a member of the Northridge Playwrights Workshop, where she wrote plays about immigration and the LatinX community. Tawnya hopes to use her journalism and creative writing experience to enrich the learning outcomes of students in English-Language Arts classrooms. |
Natalie Jiménez
MVM Educator |
Natalie Jiménez was born and raised in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, the same place where she found an interest in working with youth and writing. In 2017, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in Journalism and a minor in Spanish-Journalism from California State University, Northridge (CSUN).
Shortly after graduating, she worked as a translator and page designer for Eastern Group Publications (EGP), an Eastside chain of six bilingual newspapers that covered the local issues concerning its mainly Latino community. Here, Jiménez further learned the importance of voicing the accomplishments and hardships of minority communities. While at EGP, Jiménez also began her journey as an educator with what is now My Voice Matters, in the small South Bay L.A. area of Lennox. Over the course of two years, she has been committed to empowering the curiosity and knowledge of middle schoolers through the act of writing. She hopes to continue this journey for years to come, as well as fulfill her dream of traveling the world to further understand the realities of different communities. |
Naidelyn Martinez
MVM Classroom Mentor |
Naidelyn Martinez was born and raised in Lennox, California. She has received two associates degrees and is pursuing her bachelors at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) in Sociology.
She helps her community by working at the school that started her journey. Martinez is part of the Lennox Expanded After School Program at Lennox Middle School, where she teaches photography. She believes that taking photos is similar to journalism because a picture holds as much information as an entry does. Naidelyn is working on reaching her goal to become a guidance counselor. She hopes that her skills in photography and knowledge in writing will help her teach and spark creativity in future journalists. In addition, she wishes to grow within her community and push new generations forward. |