Community Leadership by nadeen

Community Leadership by nadeen - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

I believe leadership skills are necessary for college because I personally feel that being a leader has taught me many things about myself and my potential to help my community around me. I am the oldest of five children and with that comes many responsibilities, such as caring for my siblings as though I am a second mother. When I recently participated in a school service project that involved saving endangered species in a forest, I lead a group of classmates during the journey. As we were hiking through the forest, I guided the students to pull certain leaves and plants in order to preserve the living organisms. Because we were on a time constraint, I felt obligated to lead my classmates in the most efficient way possible to complete the tasks. The service project was a success in part due to my leadership. So I believe that leadership can help influence others around you to lead and carry on an active part of the community. In college it is important to make a stand to hopefully lead your student body to doing the best that they can.

From another personal point of view, as the leader and founder of Foreign Girls Youth Counseling, I have been learning about global issues since I was in the 8th grade. When I was fifteen, I counseled a sixteen year old girl from Colombia. She told me about HIV/AIDS incidence in her country, and how it impacted her small village that lacked refined medical facilities.

Hearing her story made me realize how privileged I am to grow up with access to quality medical care. What my friend went through convinced me of the need for awareness, and assistance from the world community to serve impoverished areas. I resolved to volunteer in an area outside the US where there is a lack of health services.

In 9th grade, I volunteered in Haiti with the Clean Water Project. My team and I worked to rehabilitate community wells, as well as educate individuals about sanitation practices. Communication with the Haitians was difficult because we did not know their language and they only knew a few words of English. I learned to listen and observe their expressions carefully in order to understand. Despite the cultural barriers between us, we united to deliver health services to the community. So in part my leadership and volunteer acts not only was beneficial to others but most importantly me because it helped me realize that by combining what I love to do, which is helping others along with leading a student body, I felt a certain accomplishment that can never be found without the leadership skills that I have developed and use to this very today.