AYP 2016 Youth Ambassadors Scholarship
Adam Lu
The pungent marijuana odor in the projects nauseated me. The occasional midnight gunshots ring my ears. But even within the projects, I see a ray of hope and a handful of young boys and girls that have the potential to live better than this. The youth of my community were not given the support they need in school and within their own household as I once was. The main stereotype of Asian Americans was that we are all smart and destined for success in the future. That is not a fair statement. Asian American in America value education more than anything else and will put whatever is necessary to allow success. Many kids in the projects come from dysfunctional families and their families do not value education as Asian American families do. I want to be the mentor that brings them to the side of success and change.
Many of the kids that live in the projects see me as the stereotypical smart Asian kid but they do not understand that I am one with them in facing the same struggles. I was not the smartest in my class nor the one with the highest grade but I had good people in my life that guided me with what I had to offer. In the beginning of my junior year at Brooklyn Technical High School, I proposed to my community a tutoring/mentoring program held on weekends for the kids in my community. Seeing young kids in the park and basketball courts fooling around wasting their time and parents that are barely looking after them, I felt that this was something that needed to be changed in my community. When proposing this idea to the management and various adults I come in contact with, I was rejected due to the lack of funding and space but I was convinced that I could do something to contribute to my community. Even without my tutoring/mentoring program in place, I started with just a small mentoring session with the middle school boys in my community.
Every weekend, I would go out to the basketball court right in the projects to play ball with the boys. Afterwards, I would just have them sit with me at the benches to talk about their week. Even though I have some who ignore me and just want to continue playing basketball, many of these boys genuinely enjoy these sessions and motivated me to come back week after week. Many of these boy’s goal is to get into high school but I know they can achieve much more. Within 3 months of these sessions, I have convinced many of the seventh graders to go for NYC’s Specialized High School Test. Later on, I even saw the same kids at the high school fair at my school. I felt so proud of these boys for changing their views towards school. Their parents were not there for the support they needed but I was there to keep them moving towards success. My original plan is still there and I want it to happen. I want them to follow in my footsteps and pass along what I started and pay it forward. I am currently one of the heads of the Mentorship Program at Rochester Institute of Technology Society of Asian Scientists and Engineer Club where we assign the new first years an upperclassman mentor to help guide them through their first year at college. I will always try my best to help those who I see need it no matter where I am.