Our Team // Nuestra Personel

 Executive Director/Directora Ejecutiva – Charo Ledón, charo@casalatinami.org, (734) 265-0323

Charo is a native of Cuba and has lived in the United States since age twelve, when she came with her family to New Jersey. She has been in Ann Arbor since moving here at age twenty. Charo serves on the Board of Directors of the Nicaragua Project and Legal Services of South Central Michigan, and is a legal interpreter registered by the State of Michigan, as well as a trained medical interpreter.

Since she first arrived in Washtenaw County, Charo has seen the Latino community grow, and has also been part of the struggles of the Latino community. She has helped people navigate living in the United States since the 1990s. Over the years, she’s seen a need for community members to get informed and access resources. She’s witnessed the need for Latinos to have space to interact with other Latinos. Charo owns and operates Olas Travel & Translations, a travel agency and translation service, and she has owned and operated several small businesses since coming to Ann Arbor, including a sewing business and bakery.

Charo was on the founding board of Latinos Unidos in 2001, which was very active for five years and hosted the community-wide Festival Latino during that time. Charo was the Spanish-speaking Outreach Advocate at SafeHouse Center from 2008-2010. She joined the Spanish Healthcare Outreach Collaborative at that time, and was an original member of SHOC’s Dreamers, who were scheming up a Latino community center. One of the founders of Casa Latina, Charo graduated from Michigan’s first Latino Nonprofit Leadership Academy in June 2011. Charo’s current interests are in advocacy and community education.

Charo lives in Ann Arbor and has two sons. She enjoys traveling (she’s been to all continents but Australia and Antarctica), camping, and Latin music, dancing and drumming.

Director of Civic Engagement/Directora de Participación Cívica – Carrie Rheingans, carrie@casalatinami.org
Carrie is a recent graduate of the dual masters program in public health and social work at the University of Michigan.  She’s been involved in the Latino community since her undergraduate years at U-M when she first learned Spanish and became a member of the Spanish Healthcare Outreach Collaborative (SHOC).  She lived in Lima, Peru while working on an internship with Via Libre, Peru’s largest HIV organization.  Carrie has also lived and worked in Germany, South Africa and China, and speaks German as well as Spanish.

Carrie is one of the founding members of Casa Latina; she was one of the original ‘SHOC Dreamers’ and helped establish the organization as the main task of her social work field placement during her third and final year of her graduate program.  The driving force behind her work with Casa Latina is the desire to overturn the inequities and discrimination she’s witnessed that many Latinos in the community face. Carrie is also employed by the Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation as the Project Manager of the Washtenaw Health Initiative.

Community Outreach Worker/Promotora del Centro Comunitario – abierto/open

Interns/Practicantes

No tenemos practicantes ahora / no interns at this time. 

If you would like to intern with Casa Latina, please contact us by calling (734) 926-4656 or emailing info@casalatinami.org

Past Staff and Interns

• Odilia García – Spanish Language Internship Program Intern/ Practicante del Programa de Idioma en Español
• Anna Victoria Muñoz – Education Intern/Practicante de Educación
• Janwin Zeegar-Holman - Eastern Michigan University Intern/Practicante de Eastern Michigan University