Royals 8

     I have had the privilege of being a leader in two different transformative experiences: Culture Club and IMAGINE. Culture Club is a club I co-founded to focus on creating a network of people to celebrate and enjoy their multicultural high school experience. When this club meets, the overall founding goals of each meeting are at the center of what we do. Though the meetings can range from helping each other with scholarships to having a Friendsgiving celebration together to discussing how our culture impacts our home life, each meeting is unique in its own way, highlighting the unity we stand for.
     In this club, people from all cultures can share their ideas and thoughts about incorporating more customs and arts from different groups of students rather than only having individualized organizations or unions. As a leader of this club, I have learned how to communicate more effectively and not be as introverted as I had been before. I have created a space where no matter where each person is from, there can be shared similarities, languages, and foods. This club has opened many doors for me to make changes in my school, such as creating a prayer room, a legacy scholarship, reading to elementary school children, and including all of my peers regardless of the adversities they face. No matter the topic, I always know I have a community to converse with because this club expands beyond the classroom and into my personal life, connecting us in the same way a family would. After all, that is what we have become. We are a culturally diverse group with interlinked values and opinions, much like IMAGINE, another extraordinary organization of w a part.
      IM ofAGINE (Inclusion, Mentoring, Advocacy, Guidance, Inspiration, Necessary for Empowerment) is an organization that works with students with cognitive deficiencies inside the high school. In this organization, we focus on engaging, including, and encouraging our peers to be the best version of themselves. As a leader, I help take the initiative to plan holiday parties centered around physically, emotionally, and cognitively friendly activities such as coloring, pin the tail on the donkey, bingo, and bean bag toss. This helps my peers who are not always seen or heard feel welcomed, appreciated, and loved.
     Each time I spend time in their classroom, we share many friendly exchanges such as hugs, high-fives, and fist bumps. While in their classroom, I also help them highlight thoughts and ideas they are passionate about and guide them to embrace ideas, such as coloring with different colors based on their mood or drawing pictures that make them happy. I encourage them to participate in these activities because it allows them to be creative and let their beautiful personalities shine through.
    Being a part of this organization has given me insight into informed and compassionate empathy, shaping my view on understanding the diverse disabilities that many students face. It has opened my thought process to how, in some instances, the care for these teens may be neglected due to the lack of knowledge and insensitivity to their needs. From the research I have done since becoming involved in this organization, I understand that more than one-third of the 500,000 children in the foster care system have disabilities, and up to 40% of children in the foster care system are abused.
     Now more than ever, because of this organization, I have been compelled to work diligently to ensure that no child or teen with disabilities or otherwise will have an unsafe home environment. I have had the advantageous opportunity to be a part of something more substantial than myself. I have been put on the path to cultivate further my understanding of cognitive, physical, multicultural, and linguistic diversity among my peers and community.
     Due to my profound experiences in Culture Club and IMAGINE, I am particularly interested in double majoring in sociology and finance and committed to my ultimate career goal of specializing in family law. This field would allow me to help families and children in my community concerning socio-economic injustices such as guardianship, issues about homes with separations of custody, and how the justice system handles the feelings of children and teens in situations like these.
      I plan to use my degree to leave a lasting impact on today’s youth. I want to encourage them to fuel their moments and connections zealously within and beyond their neighborhoods to build a strong and vast community of ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse individuals. In light of my experiences with my leadership in Culture Club and IMAGINE, I will grasp how the environment in which people, especially children, spend most of their time affects their personality. I want to show the adolescents and teens in my community that if they are willing to take chances on each other, they can change their work together to create innovative, creative, and compassionate areas for all of them to enjoy.
     My reason for going to college is not to secure a “financially stable career” but to provide a safe, emotionally stable, and economically sound home environment for families and children without one. It has always been important to me to have places where everyone feels safe, connected, and, most importantly, included, never excluded. I want to pursue my career goal because I want to speak on behalf of children who might otherwise not be heard, might not otherwise be advocated for, and might otherwise be forgotten.