“I believe in choosing your own path”

"If young people have access to people who make them feel seen, they would have someone to help them feel confident in exploring their own interests, and that would lead to a more direct and fulfilling path towards their futures."

I founded SPEAKHIRE, a nonprofit organization with a mission to build the social and cultural capital for young people, targeting young people of color, so that they can then become future workforce leaders. If you think about my Lehigh story, you’ll see how it informed this mission. I took the first two years of Lehigh to learn and adopt a new set of cultural norms, which nobody really tells you about in high school. Had I had the social and cultural capital, I would have been able to make a faster and more seamless transition from high school to college. If young people have access to people who make them feel seen, they would have someone to help them feel confident in exploring their own interests, and that would lead to a more direct and fulfilling path towards their futures.

What holds young people back from achieving fulfilling success is the time they spend trying to figure out how to fit in rather than sharpening their unique gifts.….” Read the full Lehigh University article here.