Migna Taveras

Migna Taveras joined Schools that Can on July 2023 as our new NYC Executive Director; She will lead efforts to develop our Healthcare, STEM, Science Career Pathway programs launching in 2024.  She brings with her to Schools That Can over 20+ years of professional experience tying together impactful public, private, and government programs to create opportunities for marginalized communities.  With a focus on strategic policy initiatives and programing to generate revenues, she will craft a winning culturally responsive program that efficiently empower students to succeed in seeing their futures in action.

Collaborating with elected leaders, government officials, philanthropic, and partner organizations in Healthcare, Technology, Finance, Workforce, and Education, Migna will lead STC’s efforts across NYC and beyond.  An innovator and entrepreneur, Migna will grow STC’s NYC footprint and tie together the national efforts to support our programs offerings. Passionate about affecting positive changes that improves the quality of life for disadvantaged communities and a strong heart for educating and empowering communities across the economic strata, the desire to positively impact the community is at the foundation of her practice.  She studied political science and sociology at Barnard College and went on to receive a master’s in management and finance from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Her previous accomplishments include:

Serving as a staff assistant to Congressman Robert Brady of Pennsylvania, then working as a lobbyist at Van Scoyoc Associates under the tutelage of the late Anita Estell. While there she was privileged to represent many organizations including but not limited to; National Organization for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), University of Miami, City of Detroit, Sickle Cell Disease Association of America, Spelman College, Bennett College.

After serving in the New York City Public schools as a community associate for two years leading classes on defining your story and developing your future trajectory, she went on to serve as a policy advisor to the City Council Committee on General Welfare, the committee that conducts oversight over all the agencies designed to serve NYC’s most in need.  Subsequently, worked as a policy advisor at NYCHA, while there we raised over $35 million for safety and security initiatives.

At Somos Community Care, she further refined her desire to impact global policy change and community health.  I led and trained a team of 50 Community Health Workers—who were culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse community members—to implement a patient centered model of care coordination covering the social determinants of health throughout the city of New York.  While there her portfolio included 250 primary care providers that had close to 350,000 NYC patients.  In that work, we engaged communities and empowered them to take charge of their health by training them to be less fearful within healthcare settings and training providers on key strategies to create meaningful interactive discussions with patients during visits. All these programs were founded on evidence-based initiatives like the AskMe3 model and the Stanford Model of Chronic Disease Self-Management Program (CDSCP) and the Diabetes Self-Management Program (DSMP).