Ever wonder how you can quit your job and achieve your dreams? These four Latinas have found their calling. And as one of the women says, “If you follow your passion you will have a fulfilled life. Fear is what paralyzes you. Money will come and go.”

FROM GIRL SCOUTS TO LEGAL ADVOCACY

Working for the Girl Scouts USA to bring in more diversity, Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan tried to convince Latino parents to let their girls participate in sleepaway camp. But most of the parents she was meeting were immigrants from Central America and Mexico where abuses often happened at the hands of uniformed para-military or military groups. Needless to say, persuading them to hand their children over to a uniformed group was a tough sell.

“Camping is a big component of the Girl Scouts, but Latino parents refused to send their girls to camp,” said Bannan. “They saw these women dressed in green uniforms saying they would take their daughter into the woods for a week. That did not go over well.”

She saw how families had more pressing issues to resolve like unemployment, poverty and deportation. Because of the fear of recent immigration crackdowns, a lot of families were living in isolation, afraid to send their kids to school, go to church or the market—never mind a camping trip with the Girl Scouts.

“When you are dealing with how do you feed your family or having your family being torn apart and criminalized by immigration, that takes precedence over the Girl Scouts,” said Bannan.

So Bannan decided to help her community in a deeper way. She left the Girl Scouts in 2008, took six months off and thought about her purpose in life. Her partner had always told her she would be a good lawyer, but Bannan saw lawyers as greedy and litigious.

Then she discovered City University of New York’s School of Law, a public interest law school with its legal advocacy and activist teachings, she knew she had found her calling.

“I fell in love, and I thought I could definitely be a lawyer doing women’s human rights work,” she said. “Going to law school was a profound change in my life.”

Before taking the leap, she and her partner talked about finances and agreed that they would have to live on his salary alone for a few years. Bannan, now 35, did not want to accumulate more debt, so instead of taking out loans to pay for law school, she paid for it with savings.

At 31, she was the oldest in her law school class by ten years. Giving up a 15-year career and a stable job at the Girl Scouts was not easy, but she also did not see another option.

“There is always a little bit of fear. I was in my 30s, starting a new career and in many ways what I did before did not matter,” she said. “But it was almost like I had no choice because the alternative was not a real option. It would mean I would not live up to who I knew I would be.”

Bannan, who lives in New York, graduated from law school in 2011 and began clerking for a federal judge. She recently passed her bar exam and is waiting acceptance. But come September, she has a job lined at the Center for Reproductive Rights working on domestic litigation in abortion defense, maternal mortality and women’s access to healthcare.

Bannan, who is of Italian, Puerto Rican, Colombian and Sephardic heritage, is eager to begin her new career. It is a grim time for women’s human rights. Sadly, there is a lot of work to be done not only for women’s reproductive rights but also with immigration reform, she said.

“I would love not to have a job as a human rights attorney, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon,” she said. “We need to increase social consciousness about how we treat people in this nation.”

FROM NURSING HOMES TO NEIGHBORHOOD ARTISAN CRAFTS

In 2009, Wendy Ramirez was warned that her job as a Business Manager and Grants Administrator for the country’s largest home healthcare agency could be next on the chopping block. The warning made her wonder if she wanted to spend the rest of her life researching hypertension and retirement communities.

“The work was inspiring and wonderful, but I just didn’t feel like this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” said the 53-year-old mother of two boys.

At the nursing agency, Ramirez worked long hours and commuted into New York City from Cranford, New Jersey. Since she would leave at dawn and return at night, she didn’t know her neighbors, she had trouble relaxing even on vacation, she was disconnected from her own life.

“I was not breathing,” said Ramirez. “On a plane to Puerto Rico they were closing the doors of the plane, and I was still on the phone working. They had to tell me to get off the phone so the plane could take off.”

Ramirez had always dreamed of owning a small boutique—ideally in a small town that had a homey feel to it. So in 2010, she and her cousin, who had just become a widow, pooled their resources and decided to go for it. They would open a boutique that sold artisan goods from local artists and unique and environmentally friendly gifts.

By September 2011, they found a 100-year-old store front with tin ceilings and tin walls that was originally a barbershop in Cranford’s idyllic main street. The shop would be named Artemisia, after Artemisia Gentileschi an Italian Baroque painter considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation after Caravaggio and the first female painter to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

“In 2009, I would visualize Artemisia,” said Ramirez. “I would write about it in my journal, I believed it. I didn’t know how it would happen or how that door would open, but I had set the intention. You send it out to the universe.”

Ramirez was kept on at the company (all five of her co-workers were laid off) but in December, 2011 she left.

Today, she walks to work, stops at the local tea shop where the owner makes her a specialty green tea with rose petals. They chat, taking the time to get to know each other. She has met many neighbors, and she is home in time for dinner with her husband.

At least 75% of Artemisia’s products are made in the U.S. and if she buys from abroad it is only with those who practice fair trade. Her customers come in and stay. They say the scents of Chai, ginger, cinnamon and apple pie lingering in the air make her store so welcoming, they don’t want to leave. They tell her stories about how the gifts they buy bring joy, like the dad who came back to the store to tell her how much his daughter enjoyed the photo box with quotes. She realizes that her store in now an important part of the local fabric in an unusually tight community.

“He said ‘that gift touched my daughter and it was such a beautiful moment that I had to come back to share it with you,’” said Ramirez. “Those human connections are important. It’s almost like you are interwoven into people’s lives in a small way.”