OUR TEAM
Lorena Jamison Roman
Preventive Health Organizer
I was born in Mariano Matamoros Tijuana, Mexico and just a couple years afterward my parents made the decision to move to SLC, UT in 2002. For 20 years I grew up and lived as an undocumented immigrant in the U.S. and I always felt a sense of not belonging. Eventually learning and relating to the phrase “Ni de aqui, ni de alla” or “Nor from here, nor from there.” I’ve accepted that I’ll always be in the process of learning what my identities are and how they affect my reality. Seeing and living many injustices that folks from different backgrounds experienced pushed me to fight for and/or with people whose human rights were violated.
My journey in the nonprofit and sexual health world began in 2018 when I began working at Planned Parenthood Utah’s call center. During this time I couldn’t shake the feeling of needing to be out in my community, learning the most humane approach in order to build trust and connections was to intentionally listen to their stories, lived experiences, and perspectives, I discovered a passion for sexual health in specific because of how vast the term is and how many different categories are related to this subject and how each person's different identities and intersectionalities affected their sexual and reproductive health.
Through a lot of listening and patience I continue to learn how to introduce this subject to folks from different backgrounds. I was officially hired at CU in 2021 after working in partnership through PPAU (Planned Parenthood Association of Utah) with CU and our team of promotora’s throughout 2020. Since then I have gained so much invaluable knowledge and I intend to continue my learning process indefinitely. I have the absolute privilege of being a certified Sexual Assault Counselor, running CU’s Sexual Health Education program, and overseeing our Breast Cancer Prevention and COVID-19 Education programs. My values I intend to always uphold in my role as a Promotora are as an activist of social justice, reproductive justice, and trying my best to always look for the margins within the margins.