Black History Reflection

Once I started junior year I had a recurring thought. I wanted to leave my name known at School of the Holy Child. I wanted to be a name to remember for years to come. Then I thought about what could I, Amanda Elimian, do to make Holy Child a better place. I thought of something that I am most passionate about: social justice. In 10th grade, every girl at my school takes an entire class devoted to social justice, but what I have observed especially in my own grade is that after that year, we tend to forget about those topics. I knew that I did not want the next generation of entrepreneurs, doctors, actresses, lawyers, CEOs, and amazing women to not be aware of the world around them.
I started small. During Black History Month, I gave a couple presentations on famous black leaders. My last presentation was on Amandla Stenberg, a teenage black icon. Within my presentation, I spoke about cultural appropriation and the drastic effect it has on people of color.
On the last day of this workshop, we had to go around and say our goals for the future pertaining to what we learned. My goal was to bring all this information back to my school, along with three other girls who were there, and hold regular community conversations. I’ve kept that promise. I have helped organize two community conversations at my school discussing race in the 21st century and women’s rights in 2016. This has caused a dynamic change at Holy Child. Having an open place to dialogue without fear of ridicule of judgement has caused girls at school to bring these topics into every class. I now believe that Holy Child is a better place because having these conversations has opened the student’s eyes and my own to society and helped us all become less