The Jamala Rogers Young Visionary Award serves to recognize and support young adults who have made efforts to promote social justice, equality, diversity and human rights. Award recipients are visionaries responding to society’s most pressing social, political and economic issues. The recipient’s actions or project helped to change public policies, impacted a critical issue, created innovative models of service or strengthened an important community institution. (There’s more…)

One Response

  1. As a youth in the Ma’at Program I dreamed of returning in my adulthood to reciprocate the education, love and leadership in which I had received there. Through the elders and the community in which led me to my present self, I have been able to stand up and advocate, not only for myself, but my fellow Saint Louisans and fellow citizens of the United States. My social activism stems partly from my participation with the Organization for Black Struggle. My fundamentals most definitely derive from my mother, Angela Roffle (MASW). She has been a long standing member of the social work community. From her humbled beginnings as a Case Manager with Midtown Catholic Community Service (1999-2000); all the way up to the present day as the Acting Coordinator of the Human Service Program at the Community College Forest Park campus. I watched, participated and learned the true meaning of advocacy and social justice. Along with my social worker mother and other leaders in the community like Jamal Rogers herself; I have been grounded in the actions I have taken as a young adult. These strengths aided me as I slept on the streets of downtown Saint Louis and provided meals for the Occupy Saint Louis movement. I am honored in not only know but also campaigning foe former State Representative Jeanette Mott Oxford. With tenacity and ambition, I was able to support “JMO” during reign from 2008 to 2012. My strongest stand comes from working with the Saint Louis Organizing Committee. City by city, low-wage workers are fight monstrous corporations like McDonalds, Taco Bell and Papa Johns. There is a great demand for the right to form organized unions in these establishments. Not only would we like to form protective unions, but to earn a living beyond the poverty level. My advocacy for this movement hit home because I have been a part-time student and low-wage worker for five years. I have always known that my life’s purpose was to be a servant for social justice. The future depends on the past and the present. Lauryn Hill said it best “Our present condition needs serious recognition”. I believe through my education, not only can I help bring that recognition, but I can be the voice the face of change to come.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *