Colombian Actress Estefania Rebellon is a Beacon of Light for Refugee Children

Making it in Hollywood is hard. Creating a foundation that helps migrant children get their education is way harder. And fleeing from your hometown when you are just a child and assimilating into a whole new different country seems almost impossible. Well, Estefanía Rebellón did all of the above and more.

Who is Estefanía Rebellón?

Estefanía left Cali, Colombia, and became a refugee in the United States when she was just ten years old after her family received death threats from the Colombian rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). She was raised in Miami and received U.S. citizenship ten years later.

Becoming a citizen marked a before and after in her life, granting her the possibility to live the American Dream without fear of being deported. Rebellón moved to Los Angeles to pursue her career as an actress and ended up working in the television show Jane The Virgin, hosting red carpet coverage for several Spanish-language media outlets and multiple features in national commercials and films.

She later starred in and co-directed the film “On The Other Side,” which focuses on the story of Lupe and her migration journey to the United States. As an up-and-coming actress and humanitarian, Rebellón is a champion and advocate for authentic Latin representation in the media and entertainment industry.

However, she knew she couldn’t make a change in the U.S. treatment of refugees, especially children, just by acting. In 2018, when the migratory flow reached a crisis and dozens of migrant caravans left Central America and arrived in Tijuana, it reminded her of her story, so she decided to go to the border to learn more about what was going on in the camps.

Yes We Can World Foundation

In 2019, she co-founded and became the Executive Producer of the Yes We Can World Foundation, a female-led nonprofit organization that believes every child has the right to education and safe spaces regardless of their location, current legal status, or economic background. In less than three months, she acquired a school bus that would be turned into a school and placed in the Pro Amore Dei shelter in Tijuana.

Dozens of migrant children who back home had to drop out of school found teachers, a clean space to stay, T-shirts as uniforms, and even English classes to prepare them if their families crossed the border seeking asylum. In 2020, the foundation opened a similar school in Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso (Texas), at the Pan de Vida migrant shelter, and in 2021 at the Integrator Center for Migrants, an official refuge of the Government of Mexico in Tijuana. 

The Yes We Can Mobile Schools program is the first full-time bilingual education program for migrant children at the US-Mexico border. Since July 2019, it has provided over 2 million hours of bilingual education services and has directly impacted the lives of over 1,700 children. The program serves as a keystone bridge program for refugee and migrant children entering and integrating into the United States. 

Among the obstacles she has faced throughout the years are the emotional task of helping children who are going through difficult times, teaching 10- to 12-year-olds basic math and how to read and write, or just encouraging them to have fun.

“I’m a ‘Mujer in Charge’ because I solve the obstacles that come my way and I have no fear,” she says. Nothing is stopping her.

This also means that they have classes such as Emotional Intelligence, where they deal with emotional trauma, as well as Migrant Process class, where the children are informed about what migration is and the process they are going through. The program also includes English classes, so when they arrive at an American school they know how to present themselves.

“Equality to me means equal opportunities in every sense of the word. From hiring, to creating equal spaces, to going out without fear,” she said in an interview with LATV.

For Estefanía, there are three steps towards equality: “act without fear, seek opportunities and, if they are not there, create them yourself.” And that is exactly what she has done. She has been an advocate for the #MeTooMovement, she was recognized as a “Hero of the Pandemic” by the Los Angeles Times, as an “Unstoppable Woman” by Telemundo/NBC, a “Local Hero” by Zoomin, and has been nominated for the “Alfonso Garcia Robles Humanitarian Award” by the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Rebellón’s work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, the New York Post, TIME for Kids, National Public Radio (NPR), and Global Citizen as well as in numerous other media outlets. She is also the first Colombian woman to receive the Outstanding American by Choice award recognized by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Recently, the United States government named her “Outstanding American” for her work at the Yes We Can Foundation, for “dedicating to education and providing opportunities for children, regardless of their location, legal status, or economic background.”

Check out more stories from LATV’s Women’s History Campaign ‘Mujeres In Charge.’