About me
Norma gives all the glory to God.
She is a trilingual, high-profile community leader with recognition and credibility beyond her home city of Richmond Hill. Most currently, Norma was nominated to join the Canadian delegation to the 64th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in New York. In 2019, Norma was nominated for the 13th annual TD Bank “10 Most Influential Hispanics Canadians” national awards. Premier Doug Ford and the Government of Ontario honoured Norma with the 2019 Community Achievement Award commending her for her exemplary efforts, accomplishments, her leadership in helping others. She was awarded the 2017 Brilliant Minded Women Life Time Achievement Award. She won the 2016 Absolutely Fabulous Women 40 over Forty Award. She has a passion for writing; that passion emerged when, as a teenager, she found it relaxing to write down her thoughts. As a young adult though, she put her writing on the back burner so that together with her husband they could raise three amazing children. Many years later, Norma's desire to write resurfaced when her daughter Cassandra was told by her English teacher, simply because she was struggling in that class, “I know your kind. You will never amount to much.” Those words resonated in Norma's soul and brought out the determination in her. It was that personal experience that ignited Norma's passion to write once again. She wrote an article about her daughter's struggle and her unrelenting spirit, and submitted it to the Dove® Self-Esteem Project. They liked it and honoured Cassandra by featuring her as the Dove® Real Woman of the Month. Once Norma began writing about the many hardships her daughter endured, her social media readership increased. In the meantime, her daughter flourished and went on to win awards. She even graduated from college with honours. In 2014, Cassandra received a congratulatory letter from the Honourable Stephen Harper, former Prime Minister of Canada. Ever since then, Norma has championed and written articles on a dozen other Latino-Hispanic youth and women who have excelled in the arts, in volunteerism or academically. These articles have been published in SNAP newspapers, on the Volunteer Toronto website, The Caribbean Current, Latin Life News magazine, Community Captured Magazine and on the Values.com website.