Martha Nateras is the founder and president of Livingston’s Young Women’s Conference (YWC), which will be taking place this Saturday at the town’s middle school for the conference’s tenth year. Nateras and the committee members assisting her in organizing the conference are ready for their next opportunity to empower young women for the future.

Nateras and the YWC committee members have dedicated themselves to providing young women from across the area, even beyond their Livingston community, a day filled with the best they have to offer to inspire a lifetime of success and opportunity.

Marcia Bettencourt, Nateras’ former coworker at Livingston High School where Nateras worked for over 20 years and YWC committee member, said the conference came to fill a place in the community to “give young girls some empowerment, some visions about what they’re capable of” and  “good role models.”

“I think she’s achieved all of that,” Bettencourt said.

Patty Zarco, a conference committee member and their nine-time mistress of ceremonies, also commended Nateras for her ability to lead in designing a conference that met a need for young women of all socioeconomic statuses.

Bettencourt said even past conference speakers have been representative of women from “all different backgrounds.”

Zarco added that the drive Nateras has had to build up a generation of empowered young women is a passion that they both share in their respective careers.   

“She [Nateras] has an aptitude for identifying the need for opportunities and what opportunities are best for youth in this area,” Zarco said. “I’m very impressed with the work Mrs. Nateras has done to gain exposure and momentum for the conference. That’s been a beautiful, beautiful thing to see.”

The idea to have a conference that would inspire young women to strive to attain greater opportunities for themselves began with a comment made to Nateras by her daughters, Marcy and Melissa, when they were young, according to Miguel Nateras, Martha’s husband.

“After school one day they were saying that somebody should help girls become a success in life,” Mr. Nateras said. He added that Mrs. Nateras is dedicated to helping students be the best they can be and does it all out of love.

Their daughters, Marcy and Melissa, along with their spouses, Fermin Dueñas and Julio Martin, said that they are excited to see the YWC continue to grow and benefit the community perhaps even beyond the Central Valley some day.

According to Harman Dhaliwal (senior, Business), a conference committee member since the seventh annual conference and a former YWC photographer, that dream of expanding their conference to more young women for the generation to come is becoming a reality.

In 2010, when the first conference took place, the YWC committee aimed at having 100 young women attend the conference, but only had 50 attend that year, Dhaliwal said. However, by 2017 they had their record high of 615 young women requesting to register for the conference and had to cap the YWC at 550.

Once again this year, the committee has 550 young women planned to participate in their tenth annual YWC.  

Dhaliwal added that they are able to give away 200 different raffle prizes, at a combined total value of roughly $1,000, due to their YWC sponsors.

“I think they back us because they know Martha’s character,” Dhaliwal said. He added that their sponsors have been amazed to see how the conference has grown over the years. Moreover, because of Martha’s respected character, Dhaliwal said, the Livingston superintendent, Andres Zamora, has also contributed to accommodating to the YWC at the town’s middle school facility.

Zarco said they have had to move the YWC to the school’s gym because of the increase in the size of the conference over the years.

“Women are meeting other women, and they’re kind of building each other up. I think that’s what Martha has always wanted for the conference, besides empowering them, is no matter our background we can come together,” Dhaliwal said.

Griselda Vazquez, a conference committee member, said this conference serves as a way for young women to “dream bigger” and “foster growth and opportunities” in the future to come. She hopes young women attending this conference will lead other young women to similar opportunities in the future like Mrs. Nateras has inspired Vazquez to do with her own three daughters.  

“We (women) have always had potential we are just now using it to lift the others who have not yet realized their fullest potential,” Vazquez said.

This conference will host workshops such as self-defence courses, culinary arts courses, fashion, hair and makeup design courses, opportunities to learn more about careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and opportunities to start looking at colleges.

There will also be breakfast and a chef-prepared lunch for the conference attendees as well as gift bags to give to the young women upon their arrival. Dhaliwal said Mrs. Nateras specifically picks quality, reusable gift bags that coordinate to the conference’s overall theme color.   

“I think anybody who has ever ran across her [Mrs. Nateras], whether it was a short five minutes or known her for a while, they would all say pretty much the same thing about her: that she’s selfless, she’s really strong, she’s an incredibly strong-willed person” as well as respectful and giving, Dhaliwal said.

The motto for the conference is “To empower, enrich and inspire.”

Harman Dhaliwal, Alyssa Patterson and Laura Tadeo contributed to the reporting of this article.