Syracuse School District Website

Girl Ambassadors for Human Rights      Published on   Tagged under:    District News    By Amanda Rothenberg, Contributing Writer Emma Abt (Fowler), Leah Tucker (Nottingham), MeiLin Luzadis (Nottingham), Normesha Dennis (Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central), and Ny-Jalah Sabreen Rice (Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central): five girls from different walks of life. They go to high school, as tenth, eleventh, and twelth graders, like many other teenage girls. What is different about them is that they have been chosen to represent the Syracuse City School District as Girl Ambassadors for Human Rights. This program seeks to educate women in the US, Sri Lanka, and Chile about the lives of women and the difficulties they face in the countries they live in. These five young women, as Girl Ambassadors, will be able to address the Central New York Council of the Social Studies Conference on women’s rights in Albany. Together, they will attend the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women in action in New York City in March. Connecting with other women worldwide through social media outlets will give the girls a new outlook on the way others live. To apply to this program, they each had to be recommended. Ny-Jalah received a few recommendations; her economics teacher told her to apply, as did her photography teacher and her school’s social worker. After nomination, the girls were chosen out of a large pool of applicants, all of whom presented the spirit of a humanitarian. Normesha Dennis says it is a privilege to be a part of this program, “There were a lot of girls” she states “And I was chosen… It is an honor." A standout involvement for Ny-Jalah was the play “Mimi Kennedy Finds Matilda Joslyn Gage” with which she helped. It starred Mimi Kennedy, actress and activist, who played Matilda Gage, a strong leader in the woman suffrage movement. This play, performed at the Everson Museum of Art’s Hosmer Auditorium on October 3, was to raise money for the Girl Ambassadors for Human Rights program. The moments the girls spent in small groups with Mimi Kennedy were “significant” and “intimate”, Ny-Jalah described. Ny-Jalah felt lucky to work alongside a “woman so involved”. This is just one of the many “new experiences” for which MeiLin Luzadis joined the program. MeiLin is looking forward to meeting other girls in the program and learning about the struggles they must overcome as women. Normesha’s “eyes have been opened to how women are really treated in the US."  She sees her role in this program as an “informer”; she will be able to tell young people her age about the lives of under privileged women in the world around her. And with that, she hopes that she will inspire change in those listening. All five young women are working towards this common goal. These Girl Ambassadors are ready to represent their schools, their district, and women just like them. It is an opportunity that will change their lives, and the lives of the other young girls they meet, forever.

http://www.syracusecityschools.com/districtpage.cfm?pageid=940

Essay Published through Poetic Power

"No More Snow"

The man’s grey beard stood out against his oversized dark brown jacket and garbage bag bed. My mom and I had stopped for a coffee at Au Bon Pain in New York and ended up sitting at a table next to him outside. “Can I buy you something to eat?” she asked him “Something hot” she added, since it was mid February and the nights were still cold. With a little coaxing, he accepted.

“Thank you” he added with a toothless smile. The three of us walked into Au Bon Pain and he chose tomato soup and an asiago roll to accompany it. My mom paid and we made our way outside. Before we parted, he turned to me and asked me about a storm that had just hit the Northeast. “I hope your house wasn’t damaged,” he said to me. Surprised, I stuttered out a reply. “We… yeah… our house is fine and so are we.” We both smiled and as we separated he said,  “God bless you”.

Six months later I was volunteering at my temple. I had just finished folding and sorting clothing to give to Darfur refugees and their families. I was about to leave when a man in a white shirt gestured to me and said in broken English “Come, get food!” I sat down with him and four other men. The man in the white shirt struggled with his knife and fork, but persevered. He cut his burger to fit a hotdog bun.

"I’m going to get you a hamburger bun!" I blurted out. Each man crouched over his plate of food, uncomfortable and unsure of what to say with his limited English. I craved conversation with them; I wanted to keep their words safe in my mind to use them for inspiration. After I got the man in the white shirt a bun, the others slowly got up and each took one for himself. This brought a smile to my lips because I knew I had connected with them. It was insignificant and it wouldn’t help them face a new world in America but it would be something they-and I- would remember forever. When he had finished eating, the first man turned to me.

“No more snow,” he said. I waited for him to continue. “The sun shines where I come from”. I smiled at him and said “I hope it stays sunny too” and we shared a tacit understanding that we weren’t just talking about the weather.

My College Essay: Create your own topic - Describe the influential women in your life.

Her perfume wafted through the halls as we opened the door but she wasn't there. My grandmother’s ashes were contained in a black box on the kitchen table. I looked at the art on the walls, each piece carefully hand painted with her signature in the bottom right corner. Though I didn’t know it at the time, she inspired the photographer in me. I remembered her laugh, hearty, from deep in her stomach that spread contagiously to others.

One time after my Grandfather passed away, I was having trouble sleeping. She came in to tuck me in and say goodnight. I burst into tears, but managed to say between gasps for air that I was sad for her.

“Why would you be sad for me?” she asked.

 “Because you’re lonely.”

She lulled me to sleep, reassuring me that she wasn’t lonely at all.

My grandmother and my aunt Mary had been friends since they were small children escaping Hitler’s Germany. They always lived by their own rules and supported themselves. Aunt Mary had a light grey typewriter that used to whisper sweet words to coax me into the bedroom. The typewriter sat on the antique desk and I ran towards it with the intensity of a girl in love. The keys spoke to me; clack-clack-clack they'd say and I understood that they were encouraging me to continue writing.

“Come Amanda! We’re going to our little Italian restaurant”

I quickly folded the note I had written my Aunt Mary and stuck it in her desk drawer.

“I’m getting the ziti and meatballs again!”

She put on her white mink coat that complimented her pearl necklace and we walked to the corner underneath the Roosevelt tram as she smoked a cigarette against my objections.

As I watched the red roses float away with my grandma’s ashes, I thought of her life that had vanished in the blink of an eye.  She used to tell me about her lavish trips to Europe. She’d show me the handmade jewelry she had picked up at a local market. She’d tell me that when she lived in Switzerland it was always gray and rainy. To avoid falling into the gloom of the weather, she would take a drive to Italy and when she went over the mountain that separated the two countries, she said the sun would start to shine. I imagined walking with my Grandma as we share the hidden beauties and rich culture of Europe. Her love of Italy inspired me to learn Italian.

We took a boat out to spread my grandma’s ashes on a Saturday morning. I looked over at my family. 

"Mommy" I called out, with no intention of saying more. She held me tight as the boat bounced up and down with the motion of the waves. 

"What is it honey?" she asked me but I never did respond. I looked into her eyes and saw that she was the only strong woman I knew now. She stood beside me, an embodiment of all that I wished to become, and I felt like a little girl again- for a moment.