For my capstone, I wanted to support the young women that I attended SLA with, by empowerment. By empowering the youth, it will help with self-determination to motivate oneself. By forming a small organization where girls close in age are brought together every day, they have an opportunity to develop social skills and prepare themselves for the future. Having this kind of community will help them set goals, learn what it means to be empowered, and give them the confidence to persevere. I have created a blog post where girls are welcomed to speak out or be given advice.

For my capstone I created a professional development series called: Black Boys & Young Men: Liberated, Empowered, Educate. This was done in partnership with the School District of Philadelphia’s office of Students Rights and Responsibilities. This professional development is designed to create an environment where educators are able to have meaningful conversation about how race can affect classroom learning environments as well as talking about a Black student’s individuality and how the challenges they face also affects how they learn. This series serves as a training to help educators (new and experienced) across all fields understand the reality of Black students in their classroom. For this series I had a larger focus on Black boys.

For my capstone I decided to create a mini documentary of my life. The purpose of this was to tell the world my story. I wanted people to know that even if you look different because you have a disability, you should still love yourself and be proud of who you are. Having a disability does not mean you are not special or should think little of yourself. if anything your disability makes you stand out and unique. In the documentary I tell my story in the hope of inspiring others and myself. Throughout my life it took a long time of gaining confidence in myself to reach this point of speaking my truth. When you are younger you just wish for the whispers, stares, and laughter to stop everytime you come outside. Or in my case to not always want to hide behind my mom or sister so people would not laugh at me. Telling your story helps people understand you dont think you are different than anyone else. It also shows you love yourself for who you are. My capstone taught me my voice can be a powerful weapon and that i need to use it. Ultimately I hope people be proud of who they are despite of anything they encounter in life. Disability or no disability everyone is beautiful in their own way. We can never let what others think of us stop or block our path of being the greatest version of ourselves we can be.