Cultural Parent Guides, who bring diverse lived experiences, will share their insights as both parents and professionals and will answer questions afterward.
Elena Miranda has been with Minnesota Hands & Voices since August 2017 serving Culturally Diverse Families. Offering support, providing resources, and facilitating family-to-family connections are a few examples of how she serves families. She is passionate about engaging with new families and building social connections. She is a single mother of three kids, with her oldest being profoundly deaf bilaterally. His primary communication mode is ASL but also speaks Spanish and English. Elena is an active woman who cares about others. She loves discovering ways to support individuals and families. Elena also connects with her Latinas Group to offer more support and resources to families. She really enjoys almost everything she does with her kids like; cooking, organizing, playing, paddle boarding, playing in the snow, biking, decorating and taking long walks with their family dog. She truly believes that the less isolated people are the greater their chance of success in everything they do.
Nura Hersi was born in Somalia and has lived in the United Stated for 11 years. She is a mother of 3 children, and her 6-year-old child has hearing loss. She loves to work with the Northeast African Community because of her own experiences with her child. Nura is the NE African Parent Guide with Minnesota Hands & Voices and enjoys helping families who have children with a hearing difference. She provides resources and offers support to families. When meeting with families, she often hears how much they appreciate the support and information, especially from someone who understands their cultural background. In her free time, she loves to play with her kids and read books with them. She also loves to help her neighbors and be an active member of her community.
Lee met Minnesota Hands & Voices (MNH&V) in 2023 which inspired her to join MNH&V in September 2023. She serves as the SE Asian Community Parent Guide throughout the state. Her passion is supporting, sharing, and connecting Asian community families with MNH&V services. Lee is currently in school for her Health and Human Services degree. She works as a mortgage auditor and a personal care assistant. Lee has an 8-year-old son who has unilateral, profound hearing loss. In her free time, she loves cooking, fishing, spending time with her family, and giving back to the community by volunteering to pack food at Feed My Starving Children Foundation and Neighborhood House. Lee currently lives in St. Paul Park, Minnesota. She is the youngest of 8 siblings (five sisters and two brothers) and has 28 nieces and nephews. Her son is the only one who has Unilateral hearing loss.
Yodit and her family started their journey with Minnesota Hands & Voices (MNH&V) in 2013, receiving support for their child who was born with congenital sensorineural hearing loss. MNH&V was instrumental in empowering them to become her primary advocates. Yodit has now joined MNH&V as a Metro Parent Guide, aspiring to be part of the journey and support system for other families. Born in Ethiopia, Yodit moved to Minnesota at the age of seven. Fluent in Amharic, she is continually enhancing her ASL skills and knowledge. She and her husband have five children and a large extended family. They reside in the east metro area and cherish their time together. Yodit is a nurse with a broad range of experience, she enjoys cooking, listening to audiobooks, spending one-on-one time with each of her kids, and volunteering. Her days are busy with activities involving her children, managing her 11-year-old’s care, and running a busy household.
