Diana Caba remembers what her family and teachers used to tell her when she was growing up in the Bronx: “You have what it takes to achieve success.” 

Success meant getting out of the inner city, out of public housing, out of what was at the time the poorest Congressional district in the United States, and out of the position of inequity in which Caba found herself, as a young Latina and the child of immigrant parents.

She did have what it takes. Excelling in her studies and pursuing ambitious goals, she graduated from a prestigious boarding school, studied art history and international relations at Tufts, graduating in 2005, and went on to earn a master’s degree in urban and social policy. 

But for Caba, none of that represented getting out; instead, it represented getting help. 

“I was very fortunate to have nonprofits in my life that helped me achieve my educational goals and make something of myself,” she says. “Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to follow the trajectory I did.”

The experience of being helped by these organizations offered her a career path she hadn’t known was an option: becoming a nonprofit professional herself, with a focus on creating long-term, sustainable social change.

Now the vice president for community and economic development at Hispanic Federation, Caba devotes herself to helping others. Her work involves providing Latino community-based organizations with operational support, engaging in public policy and advocacy, and overseeing direct programming in areas including immigration, economic empowerment, and workforce development, to name a few. 

“Success was never about getting out,” Caba says. “It was about lifting others up as I had been lifted up.” 

Driven by a Moral Obligation

For Vivian Lopez, lifting others up has meant ensuring they have proper healthcare. 

Now senior advisor in global health partnerships for UNICEF, Lopez, J96, started her Tufts undergraduate career as a premed student. However, when she took a course in community health during her sophomore year, she realized that that field spoke more directly to the work she imagined herself doing. “It turned out,” Lopez says, “that my interest was in ensuring people had access to healthcare rather than in being the provider of healthcare myself.” 

Switching tracks, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and community health and went on to get a master’s in public health. Her first job out of graduate school was with the United Nations, where she’s been working ever since. 

The decision to devote her career to social change wasn’t really a choice, she says. As she puts it, “It was and is a moral obligation.”

Working within the UN at UNAIDS, the World Health Organization, and now UNICEF, Lopez has witnessed firsthand how a push for justice can lead to change. In the 1980s and 1990s, for example, it had been unimaginable that an HIV-positive mother could give birth to an HIV-negative baby, or that the majority of people who receive proper treatment for HIV will never develop AIDS. But, Lopez points out, both those scenarios are now reality, with nonprofits having played an important role alongside governmental commitment and investment and the contributions from civil society.

Lopez is motivated by the knowledge that it’s possible to create change on that scale but at the same time, she is constantly aware that there’s so much work still to be done. “Inequity exists in the world, and that’s what obligates us to try to keep making change,” she says.

Her focus now is on preventing child and adolescent mortality and maternal death. There are three times more maternal deaths in fragile and humanitarian settings, she notes, and that’s true in countries where income ranges span from low to high. 

“We know what needs to be done, but it’s a question of equity. If we believe in social justice, then we have to believe in preventing child and maternal deaths, because they’re happening in the most vulnerable communities,” she says. “That’s where there’s a moral imperative.”

To Create Change, Change the Leaders

Although the majority of workers in the nonprofit sector are women, most leadership positions in the sector are held by men, Caba points out. 

Giving Others a Voice

Like Caba, Aliesha Porcena’s childhood experiences led her to her career in social justice. 

“Both my parents immigrated to Boston from Haiti,” explains Porcena, AG21, director of small business for the City of Boston. “My siblings and I are first-generation Haitian Americans. We grew up in public housing, without a lot of opportunities. It was because of programs designed to help people overcome their circumstances that I am where I am today. I take all that into the work I do.”

That work involves creating opportunities for and providing information and resources to small-business owners in Boston. After the shutdowns and restrictions of COVID-19, Porcena notes, small businesses, especially restaurants, were struggling to make a comeback. She helped launch and continues to oversee initiatives that revitalize businesses. 

One of her top priorities has been making grant applications as accessible as possible. She ensures that all grant announcements issued by her office are published in the most common languages spoken in Boston. She also holds monthly informational meetings, providing interpretation services as needed, and she and her team travel around the city to communicate with small-business owners about their needs and the resources her office provides. “My work strives to meet people where they are,” says Porcena.

For Lopez, it’s about ensuring the future growth of opportunities for marginalized communities. “I especially want to encourage young women to consider careers in public health,” she says. “We need more women who are leaders in the field, who can raise their own voices to help give a voice to others.”