Board of Directors Spotlight: Dr. Diana Montoya-Williams

​Here at Children Beyond Our Borders, we have a lot of bright stars on our team, especially our Board of Directors. Today, we’re here to highlight one member in particular, Dr. Diana Montoya-Williams. A Harvard and Columbia graduate and current pediatric resident at UF Shands, Dr. Montoya-Williams and her husband are the masterminds behind our immensely successful program “Dance for Good.” In her words, “Dance for Good was really my husband Brendan's brainchild… 

two years ago when we got married, we raised money for CBOB through our wedding. We have decided that every year around our anniversary, we would celebrate our anniversary by having a big salsa party as we both love to dance… The hope is that through this event, we can keep our Salud, Amor & More Scholarship that we set up for female Colombian students interested in a medical career alive and well and sustainable.”

This year, our Dance for Good event was HUGE and brought in over $3,000 alone! We here at CBOB extend an immense amount of gratitude and appreciation towards Dr. Montoya-Williams and her family for their time, dedication, and love for our organization. However, it doesn’t end here with Dance for Good. On April 8th-11th, Dr. Montoya-Williams gave a presentation at Consortium of Universities for Global Health International Conference in San Francisco. Her project, entitled "Education through Empowerment: A Novel Global Health Track for Residency Programs" was a “culmination of the merging of my global health interests and the existing Bound for Peace model that exists within CBOB. Given my desire to promote public health in Colombia, we created the first Medical and Public Health trip in the same model as a Bound for Peace trip.”

Montoya then explained to us that the trip has three important aims:

1) We want to teach undergraduates how to create and deliver public health talks to children and families
2) We wanted to serve the community's needs and as a result conducted medical history screenings that Colombia Somos Todos was in need of
3) The didactic component for me and the reason it worked as part of my formal pediatric residency curriculum is that I was learning about and teaching global health engagement simultaneously, preparing me for future global health endeavors. It was an exciting project and we are in the process of setting up the infrastructure to make it an annual trip.

Wow! How amazing is all of that? Drawing so much inspiration from CBOB and our programs is incredibly humbling and it drives us to be better and do better everyday. In closing, Dr. Montoya said this:
“More than anything, Brendan [her husband] and I are committed to empowering socially disadvantaged children through education and health. We have been impressed with CBOB's efforts to this same idea and honored to be able to contribute to CBOB's mission. We look forward to a long, productive, socially engaged and fun relationship with CBOB in the years to come.”

We would love to say that we are looking forward to the great relationship that is blossoming between us as well! Thank you so much for all of the work you’ve done and will do!

Something to keep an eye out for in Dr. Montoya-Williams’ continuous service involves a collaborative effort between CBOB, the University of Florida Pediatric Residency and the UF Mobile Outreach Clinic to bring a wholly pediatric-staffed mobile clinic to the immigrant and migrant families we currently serve in Alachua. The event is scheduled for June 11th and they hope this will be the first step to bringing regular primary pediatric care directly to these families in need. They are also in the process of applying for a national grant to help fund such future events.

Talk about an involved teammate! Thank you again for everything that you do for us and we are so incredibly blessed to be able to help and assist you in the ways that we can.