Posted on December 22, 2017
“My name is Jorge Lomas I was born and raised in Denver, Colorado and I will be the first person in my family to go to college. I am a Mexican-American student whose family has endured a lot for me to be here today and because of that they have influenced my goals in life to help others better their own life. Some of my family members had to be smuggled into this country like animals to be able to pursue a better life for themselves and to give my sister and I the opportunity to have a simplified future, one that they could unfortunately not find for themselves.
Now that they’re in America all they can ever think about are their blessings, but for some reason, the promise of a better life was one that was selfless and evaded them, as they were not able to find the riches and fortunes that everyone talked about in Mexico. Still, my parents have worked tirelessly to provide for us. Growing up money was tight for my family, we were lucky to have a small two-bedroom apartment in which 8 of us were crammed, it was the whole family. Never once did I struggle with food or clothes; all the simple necessities were provided for me. But what I failed to see as a young boy was that often my mother and father would often go without eating or wearing the same clothes for weeks just so my sister and I would be able to eat and have new, clean clothes. I would often not see my dad for a few days as he had multiple rotating jobs that he would work each day. It was not rare for him to work 18 or 19 hours of the day. With all these stressors that my family had to deal with they never once complained about anything. Instead, my parents had one always encouraged me to be a student and to follow my dreams, no matter how silly they sounded. My parents are my greatest motivators in my life. Their resilience and drive are unmatchable. Looking back now I can see that my family and parents had a lot of stress that they kept to themselves and it has affected their mental health in some ways.
My families past and my experiences are the reasons why I want to work with monolingual, immigrant, refugee and undocumented populations who live in lower socioeconomic status (SES) areas within our state and that are often dealing with undiagnosed mental health issues that living in these environments can cause. I want to raise awareness within the Latino community primarily, and then expand to all the other communities. I want to be able to mentor the population and become an advocate and a resource would allow them to find their “American Dream”. My education has allowed me to obtain knowledge that has opened many opportunities and resources for myself and I think every person deserves to have the same access to these opportunities in their community. With our current presidential administration, it has never been more important to assist the immigrant and monolingual population along with the refugee population, each person is capable of greatness as our country was built by amazing immigrant populations and continues to flourish because of this same reason. Another social justice project that I would like to work on would be emergency management and emergency preparedness.”
Posted on December 22, 2017
Project: I want to create a resource guide for undocumented Students in the State of Colorado.
Inspiration: Being Undocumented myself, I did not have guidance to attend college and it was difficult sharing my issue with any person. I struggled to apply for college, scholarships and reaching out for help. I believe I was not the only one.
Future Plans for Project: I hope to help undocumented students, counselors and advisors find those resources and achieve their dreams that everything is possible.
Posted on December 22, 2017
“I am the first daughter in my family to attend college and a first generation student born in the U.S. My parents emigrated from Jakarta, Indonesia to California in hopes of building a better future for our family. My parents do not have a college degree. They hold our Batak culture traditional values close to their heart even after leaving their country. My mother wanted me to become a Registered Nurse (RN) but I chose to follow my aspirations on majoring in Public Health and Ethnic Studies.The Social Justice project I would be interested in working on is the beauty standards in Asian American and Pacific Islanders women focusing on representation and body positivity in the media how it affects women negatively, like myself, and how it impacts their life for example their mental health.”
Posted on December 22, 2017
“I come from a family of Italian immigrants on my mother’s side, and from my father’s side, I am Puerto Rican. Growing up, I was brought up by my grandmother who did her best to raise me. However, living with her I was considerably sheltered which had its benefits and drawbacks. Some of the benefits include being raised with a great work ethic, a passion for helping others and animals, and a curiosity that has fueled my undergraduate studies. On the other hand, I did not know a lot about social justice issues until I was old enough to realize it and educate myself. For instance, I never realized how important access to birth control is or about reproduction rights for women. Neither my grandmother or my mother graduated with a college degree. I am a first-generation student which in of itself has created many challenges for me. I did not have the guidance of parents who had graduated from college and could help me navigate college which was difficult at times because I did not know what to expect and I did not know about financial aid. Not to mention, no one ever discussed going to college with me, or if college, in general, was brought up it was clear that everyone thought it was too expensive and that I would not be able to attend. Two social justice projects that I am interested in working on is helping undocumented students and focusing on sexual health/reproduction rights.”
Posted on December 22, 2017
Project: My project is giving underprivileged and impoverished youth access to the outdoors. I plan on working with a non-profit organization that currently does this in some capacity and seeing first hand the ways in which to start my own non-profit of a similar nature, and the impacts the organization has on the youth. Getting youth out in the mountains, camping and hiking and overcoming many personal obstacles and building their confidence!
Inspiration: As a youth, I did not have many opportunities to go out and play in the mountains because my family couldn’t afford the equipment nor did they have the time or the desire themselves to go do the things I wanted to do. As an adult, I have taken advantage of the mountains being just a few minutes away and getting found as often as I could in them. I am an avid 14er’s bagger (hiker of the mountain peaks that have an elevation of 14,000 feet or more) and recently I saw first hand just how summitting one of our beautiful 14er’s can boost the confidence of a young person. I hiked Huron Peak with my eight-year-old kiddo this summer. It was their first and my 14th. My kid was the type of kid who would not try new things out of fear. They would not go to birthday parties in fear of not knowing anyone but the birthday kid. They didn’t learn to ride their bike until just this year because they didn’t think they could do it. When we made it to the top of that peak, their whole being changed. They were all smiles, jumping up and down, looking around and already talking about “when can we do another one!” The next day, their confidence levels were through the roof, trying new things, being a little more daring, and going up to kids they didn’t know and starting a conversation.
Seeing how just this one simple thing of hiking to the top of a mountain peak can increase the confidence level of one young person has helped me to choose this as my Puksta Project.
Future Plans for Project: I hope that by showing young people, especially youth who are already looked past because of their skin color or social class standing, that their minds are a powerful tool and if they tell themselves “I can” and out in a little hard work, they can accomplish huge things in life! Maybe I will help to inspire the next president of the US 🙂
Posted on November 2, 2017
Project: My Puksta Project for the year is teaching Financial Education to the youth (Middle School). I will be working with the Financial Economic and Education Transformation (FEET) Center. I’ve decided to focus mainly on the Aurora School District considering they are a more diverse school district. I have noticed that the youth has a lack of financial education which is a necessity to have in order to successfully sustain yourself. Overall, as a community, the people who lack this knowledge are people who are African American, Native American, Mexican Indian, Asian American, etc. As a student, I have noticed that the Cherry Creek District students have business and finance courses that are more rigorous than Aurora and Denver Public Schools. By starting small I will teach finance at Aurora Public Schools and if my plan succeeds I will eventually move on to Denver Public Schools. I have started my project in making a Business Proposal to demonstrate to the schools or youth aimed organizations what I plan to do, budgeting cost for my project, and informing them about the FEET Center. My next step was to create the curriculum. After I finish the curriculum, I plan to teach finance where the youth group meets or as an after school program.
Inspiration: Well, I began as a student in finance club that was sponsored by the Financial Education Economic Transformation (FEET) Center. As I was in the program for four years I gained interest in the knowledge and developed an idea that the reason why many people are struggling to get through life is that they do not have background knowledge in financial education. That led me to want to continue to work with the FEET Center.
Future Plans for Project: With my civic engagement work, I hope to accomplish building a better community where people are able to sustain themselves and achieve their goals wisely.
Posted on November 2, 2017
Project: Working with High School Students to educate them on how to attend a 2-4 year university.
Inspiration: My own background and identity as an immigrant.
Future Plans for Project: Increase the number of students attending college after graduating high school that identify as ASSETT or DACA
Posted on November 2, 2017
Project: My Puksta project focuses on creating accurate sex education for Latina and African American high school girls as well as helping them learn about reproductive resources. This year in Pi Lambda Chi Latina Sorority Inc., I helped with our Women of Tomorrow Conference by creating a pamphlet on sex education for girls to keep and take home. I also helped my sister on her sex education class and explained my pamphlet there! It had information on consent, birth control, STI’s and contacts. This is something that will carry on with our conference that is held every year!
Inspiration: After reading the graphic novel, “Waiting for Health Equity” by the Center for Health Progress, I was inspired by the following fact that stood out: ‚”Black and Latina teens are over twice as likely as white teens to become pregnant. This is due to the fact that non-white teens are less likely to have access to reproductive health resources and receive accurate sex education” (Center for Health Progress, 38).
Future Plans: Understanding the barriers to sexual health education can help inform development of a pilot program to reduce teen pregnancy rates among women of color.
Project: ” My project is titled Be Yourself and Own It! it is a campaign designed to defeat the perception of beauty and spotlight the uniqueness in being different and yourself! Society’s ideologies influences us to believe that we are not beautiful in our own skin if we do not fit a criteria. The objective is to promote self love and natural beauty for both men and women from different backgrounds to use. The campaign will be based around curly hair ladies since it is what I am most passionate about although everyone is welcomed to use these tips. The goal is for young women to leave happy, free, and ready to fall in love with their new journey. ”
Inspiration: The perception that beauty is based on appearance alone is false. Being beautiful in appearance is a blessing, however; it’s really the uniqueness in being different, that defines true beauty. In middle school, I was teased about my thick bushy eyebrows and my voluminous, curly hair. I didn’t want to wear my glasses because it wasn’t cool to have, four eyes. I figured, the only way I could be pretty was if I straightened my hair and thinned my eyebrows. Today, I have been able to overcome that and would like to stand up and advocate for those who are going through what I went through.
Future Plans for Project: It’s important that young girls have a respectable role model to look up to. If women come together and support young girls they will grow to love themselves the way God created them. I want to play an active role by engaging with other young ladies. Building diversity, and helping them to learn how to love themselves and embrace their identities is what I hope to accomplish.
Project: My Puksta Project is to work with students who are learning English at Fort Morgan High school.
Inspiration: My personal experience inspired me to choose this project. I wanted to go to college but I didn’t know how to because since my English wasn’t good enough, my counselor told me to just look for a job after graduation because college is hard and it is not for someone like me.
Future Plans for Project: My one goal this year is to see at least one student accepted to college.
