Carolina M. Osorio came to the U.S. from Colombia when she was 10 years old, and during her youth she gained a fascination with language and communications.
“When I was younger, my dream was to be a writer and travel the world while working for a magazine,” she said.
While Osorio has yet to achieve the goal of a globetrotting wordsmith, she has used her appreciation of language to create a business that uses words to provide often-vulnerable individuals with much-needed assistance.
As the founder of the Norwalk-based CP Servicios Latinos, Osorio provides both her bilingual skills in offering translation services for Fairfield County”™s Latino community as well as an understanding of the federal, state and nonprofit resources that can help this community in a myriad of legal, social and economic matters.
“I come with a professional background in social work, community outreach and also legal work,” she explained. “In all of the work that I”™ve done with nonprofit organizations and the legal offices where I”™ve worked for more than 17 years, the focus has always been with the Latino community.”
Osorio”™s background included community education outreach for a domestic violence agency, where she worked with Latino organizations, churches and other entities in educating them about the resources for assistance against home-based abuse. She also worked as a family violence victim advocate, helping individuals in both criminal and civil court cases.
“That was the starting point of my passion for learning about all of these programs and resources,” she said.
Osorio launched CP Servicios Latinos unofficially in 2017, offering educational and informational outreach to help the Spanish-speaking community apply for federal and state benefits while offering an overview on matters related to consumer, labor and housing laws ”” her work as a paralegal in a law firm helped widen her understanding of those issues, which she is able to share on a consultative basis.
She registered her business as a full-time endeavor in 2020, and while acknowledging her first year was “tough” due to the pandemic she also noted that many people whom she assisted in her earlier work have followed her to become clients.
Over the past four years, Osorio has witnessed a growing level of awareness and self-respect for a demographic that often felt marginalized by the wider society.
“Our community has become more aware they don”™t have to stay silent,” she said. “If there is an issue that can be resolved, it”™s just a matter of knowing the programs that are available and how these processes work.”
Osorio described the marketing of her services as “old-fashioned,” with postcards and business cards placed in Latino restaurants and retail stores. But she is cutting edge in hosting webinars on Facebook and Instagram to highlight the complexities of various legal processes that frequently baffle people.
“For example, when there is a possible eviction, I explain the eviction processes and how to be on the lookout for how to avoid being illegally evicted,” she said. “I also provide a lot of information about labor ”” there are a lot of employers that take advantage of people and will hire someone to work for them regardless of their legal status and then they will pay them poorly. So, I am explaining to them how to file a complaint for wages with the Department of Labor.
“I also do sessions about how individuals can file for divorce or child custody or child support, or if they”™re going to need a restraining order in domestic violence cases,” she added.
Looking ahead, Osorio would like to pursue a law school education to further enhance her skill-set. She is also hoping to grow CP Servicios Latinos from a Fairfield County-based business into a national organization.
“I have a high percentage of clients that are from other states,” she said.
