AL DIA Foundation | AL DIA FOUNDATION

The AL DIA Media Educational Foundation

A 501 (C)3 Non-profit organization of AL DÍA News Media

Why we exist

The absence of Latino voices in American news media today is disturbing

Access to Educational and Training opportunities determines the number of diverse voices existing in the media today. The absence of Latino voices in American news media today is disturbing, if not outright frightening. These needed voices are extremely scarce and often, completely non-existent. As the nation continues to see the growth of Latinos, its largest ethnic community, this endemic disparity has reached crisis proportions. This vast inequality must be addressed now as a key priority of an urgent and common call towards a more equitable evolution of the American News media in the new century.

Our mission

To empower Latinos To Tell Their Own Story

To empower Latinos to tell their own story and tackle the inequity of Latino voices by giving disadvantaged young people the education and training opportunities they need to be not only the witness but also the storytellers of the history Latino Americans are making.

Our goal

Empower Them With Knowledge And Practice

To give disadvantaged High School, College Students and University Graduates the support and the tools to increase their opportunities to be part of the media landscape in our city, our region and our country. To empower them with knowledge and practice in a unique multilingual, multimedia and multicultural newsroom environment.

Our programs

The VARELA Fellowship Award Program honors the memory of Father Félix Varela y Morales, an American intellectual of Latino origin who lived in Philadelphia in 1823

Co-op opportunities for College Students in Journalism or Media Schools (Junior and Seniors).

The main award program is the one-year “Felix Varela” Fellowship for College Graduates from Journalism or Media Schools. The “Félix Varela” Fellowship Award for Latinos seeking a career in media is a nation-wide competition to bring to Philadelphia the most competent graduates from school of media and journalism throughout our region and across the United States. The award was established to honor the memory of Father Félix Varela y Morales, an American intellectual of Latino origin who founded one of the first Spanish-language newspapers in the United States, in the city of Philadelphia, at the beginning of the 19th Century (1823).

The Varela Fellowship Awards will be offered in a competition among recent U.S. Journalism School graduates from any J-School located in any of 50 States, who articulate compelling reasons to receive a one-year fellowship from the AL DIA Foundation.

Our story

We want to help colleges and universities attract, retain and further train new students from the Latino and under represented communities in our unique multimedia, multicultural, multilingual and overall entrepreneurial journalism practice

Over the past 2 decades AL DIA —founded in 1994 by entrepreneurial journalists— has been a place where dozens of young individuals from the Latino and multicultural communities of our nation have found that hard-to-come-by opportunity to have the first experience in the world of news media.

This critical experience has enabled them to bolster their careers with many continuing in the mainstream media, sometimes in multimedia departments, or where their multilingual, multicultural skills and overall business savvy have been highly valued.

Alumni of AL DIA can be found today in media business development, in media relations managements, and also in government and corporate communications.

The AL DIA Education Foundation was established in 2010 by the staff of AL DIA News that saw an opportunity to offer the company’s unique journalistic and business expertise to help colleges and universities attract, retain and further train new students from the Latino and under represented communities in our unique multimedia, multicultural, multilingual and overall entrepreneurial journalism practice.

Through the Foundation we are now taking this effort to the next level, creating a unique ecosystem to continually help Latinos start careers in journalism, new media and also media business management.

We want now to multiply the model in partnership with educational institutions truly interested in working in this common purpose of diversifying the voices in the media by empowering this new generation of diverse graduates to include the Latino American experience as part of the new American narrative of U.S. Journalism in the 21st Century.