Meet JAMILA JACKSON, Pave the Path Member of the Month for June.
Jamila Jackson
Jamila is a senior attending Wayne High School. Her hobbies include gardening, working out, and bowling with her dad. Being a teenager of a deaf father, she has taken on the role of being his personal interpreter. Having the chance to connect and get close to her father is the most important thing to her. Her father is her #1 supporter, and she is his. Inspired by that relationship, Jamila is planning to major in Early Childhood Development. Once she has received her master’s degree, she will pursue her dream as working in schools for the deaf.
Through her experience of being a Pave the Path member, she has noticed that she has become more of an extrovert. Having attended Pave the Path events she says,” It taught me to express myself in the best way possible.” Having her dad being her #1 supporter, she sees Pave the Path as being the second on her list by describing it as a “family”.
In 2019 a group of Pave the Path members at Wayne High School earned a $1,000 Young Visionaries grant to improve the community that surrounds their school. When the winners couldn’t pursue the idea by the time they graduated, they passed it down to a group of upcoming seniors and juniors, including Jamila. She and others have decided to use the money to help Wayne students affected by poverty.
In addition to her father’s inspiration, she also looks up to Education Rights Activist Malala Yousafzai. Malala Yousafzai is an activist for the education of women and children in her homeland in Northwest Pakistan. Jamila admires her commitment towards women education in her country, fighting against the local Taliban for girls to attend school.