Meet Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 2023 State of the Union guest: Eugénie Ouedraogo of Taunton

• Warren met this mother of three in Taunton in 2021
• Originally from Burkina Faso, Eugénie immigrated to the United States in June 2017. She and her husband, Alain, became U.S. citizens in 2022.
• Eugénie Ouedraogo is a nursing student at UMass Dartmouth
• Warren selected her to call public attention to the fight for comprehensive, long-term investments in affordable, accessible, and high-quality child care.

TAUNTON — Family and education have been the priorities for Eugénie Ouedraogo and her husband Alain since they immigrated to the United States from Burkina Faso in 2017.  

Settling in Taunton in that year, after brief stints living in Boston and New Bedford, Ouedraogo (pronounced Wei-drao-go) started attending Bristol Community College in 2018, where she completed a two-year program in life sciences. She is currently pursuing a bachelor of science in nursing at UMass Dartmouth. 

Ouedraogo said she doesn’t know if she could have gotten this far with her education without the child care programs offered through Taunton-based Triumph, Inc. to watch over her and Alain’s three children.

All of their children have gone through or are currently using Triumph’s federally subsidized offerings, whether it's center-based daycare, early educational programs, like literacy and social development, or limited home-based services. Most of these offerings Ouedraogo’s family couldn’t have afforded if they weren’t eligible for vouchers. 

“I’m at ease with going to school knowing my kids are secure here. They’re people I can trust,” she said, speaking at Triumph Inc.’s building on Barnum Street in Taunton Friday morning.

Ouedraogo’s story is similar to what many parents face nationwide: the challenge of finding affordable child care. 

And it is why she got invited to Tuesday’s State of the Union Address. This Tuesday night, Feb. 7, Ouedraogo will be sitting in the Congressional chambers on Capitol Hill as a personal guest to Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. 

“Eugénie is the perfect example of why we need to make bigger investments in child care.  She knows firsthand the struggle to find high-quality affordable care,” Warren said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon. 

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How Ouedraogo was selected as a State of the Union guest

Warren said she first met Ouedraogo, who is a member of Triumph Inc.'s Policy Council, while visiting the organization's headquarters in Taunton for a roundtable discussion in 2021. 

“There was a need in the Council. Seeing everything this program has done for me, I have a lot of challenges, but I couldn’t step back,” said Ouedraogo on why she volunteers to sit on the Policy Council. 

Ouedraogo said she got the opportunity to “speak from my heart” to Warren at the roundtable.

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Affordable child care is an issue Warren has expressed great passion about. She said Ouedraogo left a strong impression on her when they met.

“I was knocked out by her. She is a reminder that child care is part of the economy,” said the senator. 

Ouedraogo said she was shocked “she remembered me” when Warren’s office contacted Triumph Inc. inviting her to the State of the Union Address. 

"Of course I’m going to go there,”  Ouedraogo said.

Ouedraogo said she hopes, by being a face for the issue, she can communicate to other elected officials the need for greater attention and funding for child care programs. 

Her ideas include more voucher offerings, loosening eligibility requirements for parents, accelerated training programs for new teachers, and fairer wages for teachers and staff. 

“I’m expecting a lot, but it’s not something that cannot be done,” Ouedraogo said. 

How do you get to be a guest at the State of the Union?

Guests to the State of the Union are invited by the President or members of Congress, according to the Congressional Research Service.

How many guests are there for the State of the Union?

That depends on who you count.

First, there are the government officials who are invited. According to the Congressional Research Service, that group traditionally includes members of the House and Senate, along with the President’s cabinet (with the exception of one planned absentee cabinet member, commonly referred to as the "designated survivor" to ensure continuity of government), vice president, Joint Chiefs of Staff, justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, former members of Congress and members of the diplomatic corps.

Then there are the civilian guests. Each member of the House and Senate is permitted one guest, for a total of 535. In addition, Congressional leadership and the President are permitted "multiple" guests.

"The chief executive frequently invites citizens who have distinguished themselves in some field of service or endeavor to be personal guests in the gallery," according to to the Congressional Research Service.

The tradition was started in 1982, when President Ronald Reagan invited Lenny Skudnik, a bystander who dove into the icy waters of the Potomac River to save a woman after an airplane crash. As a result these citizen guests at the State of the Union have come to known as "Lenny Skudniks."

This year's guests will include the parents of Tyre Nichols, who died after being brutally beaten on Jan. 7 by five Memphis police officers, who have been charged with second-degree murder.

Child care crisis

The U.S. Department of Labor recently launched a National Database of Childcare Prices, analyzing the costs of child care at the county level.  All 14 counties in Massachusetts were ranked in the top 100 in the nation for spending the most on child care. Norfolk and Middlesex counties made the top 4 in the nation, with more than $26,000 or 20% of the median family budget going to child care. 

Key findings expressed by the Department of Labor on the data drew two conclusions: counties with more expensive child care costs also had less maternal employment; and the child care industry is heavily dependent on struggling families and underpaid workers. 

“The economics of child care today don’t work,” said Warren. 

She said the industry continues to lose workers because of low pay, while costs continue to increase. It’s this pattern that, she said, contributes to a dire job market with many businesses struggling to find staff. 

“Going to work, for many parents, is a money-losing proposition. People work, but leave their jobs because child care fell through. Others won’t apply for jobs because they can’t find affordable care,” Warren said. 

Karen M. Ennis, Executive Director for Triumph, Inc. in Taunton, said that currently the organization, like many programs nationwide, is dealing with a staff and teacher shortage — leading to a long waiting list of parents wanting to use Triumph’s services. 

Ouedraogo’s two oldest children were enrolled in the daily, center-based infant child care five days a week before they aged out of the infant and toddler care programs. Currently, her youngest child, who is 14 months old, can only receive limited home-based services (once a week for 90 minutes) because there continues to be no availability for regular daily care through Triumph. 

"My family is not the only family," she said, adding she pays for a babysitter the rest of the week so she can attend classes.

Solutions to child care crunch?

Ennis said one of the things she is hoping Warren can address on the federal level is changing the eligibility requirements for families to access their programs through the nation’s Head Start program.

She sees the eligibility system as “antiquated” and not “reflecting the real world,” explaining a family of four, with two parents, has to be making less than $30,000 to qualify for these programs. That means, in Massachusetts, two parents working full-time and making minimum wage wouldn’t qualify. 

Another issue Ennis hopes Warren and other officials can fix is fair wages for staff and teachers, some of which are only making $400 a week.

“I have teachers that work for health insurance and child care, and at the end of the day, are bringing home pennies on the dollar,” Ennis said.

Warren said the country as a whole needs to think of child care as a necessity, not a luxury, calling it "so crucially important to millions of families nationwide.”

She said she will be seeking a greater investment in child care on a federal level, one way will be to re-introduce a proposal to Congress for universal child care.

“As a nation, we need to invest in child care the same way we invest in roads and bridges, and in public education,” Warren said.