Ready to Lead Roundtable: Black and Latinx Girls Speak Out 

Ready to Lead Roundtable: Black and Latinx Girls Speak Out 
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020
1:30 pm PT/4:30 pm ET

Join us for a girl-led roundtable discussion of Ready to Lead: Leadership Supports and Barriers for Black and Latinx Girls. 

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Four years ago we set out to gather a new set of data that tells the more complex, nuanced, and intersectional story of the leadership development of girls of color. That data turned into Ready to Lead: Leadership Supports and Barriers for Black and Latinx Girls. 

Don’t miss this one-hour interactive roundtable event. Hear our panel of experts discuss their lived experiences of these findings. Get your questions answered by a panel of youth leaders, report author Dr. Charlotte Jacobs, Girls Leadership Chief Program Officer Kendra Carr, or Grantmakers for Girls of Color Executive Director Dr. Monique W. Morris, who penned the foreword of the report. Susan Reid, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion, will open the roundtable. You will gain firsthand insights into how leadership is successfully cultivated for these girls, the barriers they face, and what changes need to be made to create a supportive environment at school. 

In partnership with Grantmakers for Girls of Color and Girls Justice League. 

Sponsored by Morgan Stanley.

With additional support from:

Panelists

Angeris Encarnacion is a senior attending Esperanza Academy in North Philadelphia. Angeris has been in the nonprofit organization for girls, Girls Justice League, for three summers now, and through them has become more passionate about social justice issues. Angeris aspires to be a human rights lawyer and major in political science in college.

Blessing Osazuwa (she/her) is a singer-songwriter, activist, and educator from Ardmore, PA. She has an associate’s in music from Montgomery County Community College and is currently attending Columbia University in the City of New York, studying music and African American Studies. Her interests include music history, arts advocacy, and Black feminist theory. Outside of school, Blessing has worked as a Youth Program Coordinator for the BlackStar Film Festival, and currently serves as an Outreach Coordinator for Educators for Consent Culture, a Philadelphia-based organization that works to dismantle rape culture in schools.

Daniella Fadjoh is a sophomore in college studying sociology, philosophy, and colonialism. A member of Girls Justice League for the last three years, she was a peer coordinator for this summer’s Summer Justice Institute. Currently, Daniella is exploring and learning about neoliberalism, disability liberation, and alternatives to capitalism. She is passionate about community care, abolition as a means for black liberation, writing, and watching cartoons.

Maya Whites is a rising senior at the Brearley School! DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives are my passion. Maya is co-president of her school’s Black affinity group, and a founder and co-president of the creative newspaper dedicated to DEI issues, Panoramic. Outside of school, she is the founder of Independently Black, a web series dedicated to discussing the Black experience in NYC Independent Schools. Maya is so excited for the launch event!

Naysa Harraway is a 12th grader attending The Young Women’s Leadership School of Queens (TYWLS). It was in elementary school when Naysa joined the debate team, winning her first championship at the age of nine and birthing her deep passion for law and debate. She takes part in the debate club to help shape her into an aspiring criminal lawyer. Growing into her teenage years, Naysa developed a love for sports: mainly basketball and track and field.  Naysa is an active part of her school leadership, taking part in Student Government, and serves as a Student Ambassador. Naysa has found her voice through the art of poetry and debate. In addition, she is active in her community of Southeast Queens and across New York City, giving her service to different nonprofit organizations and becoming a youth activist to use her platform of poetry to advocate for those facing injustices in Black and Brown communities. Lastly, Naysa has recently become a young author of her own poetry book and is hoping to have her own criminal justice firm to make a change into the future of our justice system, after obtaining her bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Sarah Rose Santiago (they/them) is a third-year student at Bryn Mawr College studying Comparative Literature. Many of their interests include Ancient Greek Tragedy, translation theory, critical race and gender theory, ethnic studies, as well as narrative storytelling as a form of activism. Sarah Rose hopes to pursue their Ph.D. so that they can explore the ways stories of BIPOC women and femmes have continued and changed over time, and what those stories mean today. Outside of school, Sarah Rose works with the Girls Justice League, a girls-led organization in Philadelphia that advocates for the social justice of young girls, women, and femmes. 

Hosts

Charlotte E. Jacobs, Ph.D., is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her research interests focus on issues of identity development and gender in education concerning adolescent girls of color, teacher education and diversity, and youth participatory action research, and she is the co-founder of the EnGenderED Research Collaborative. Currently, Charlotte is the Co-Director of the Independent School Teaching Residency program at Penn GSE. Additionally, blending her work with independent schools and youth participatory action research, Charlotte is the research director of the School Participatory Action Research Collaborative (SPARC-CSBGL). Charlotte is also a proud board member of the Girls Justice League, a girl-led nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia focused on gender justice and girls’ rights.

Kendra Carr is excited to join the Girls Leadership team as Chief Program Officer, after almost a decade of work as an administrator at Holy Names High School, an all-girls school in Oakland. She is deeply committed to girls programming that addresses the needs of all girls, especially those at the margins of society. Love, community, humility, equity, and a commitment to liberating action are the values that guide her work with youth. For the last 15 years, Kendra has served in various roles within the field of education and youth development, and has worked with elementary, middle, high school, and community college students and their families.

Kendra received a B.S. in Political Science with a minor in Ethnic Studies from Santa Clara University and a M.A. in Education with a concentration in Equity and Social Justice from San Francisco State University. She completed her Doctorate in Educational Leadership from Saint Mary’s College of CA. While she loves her work, the greatest source of joy in her life is her beautiful family — her husband and two sons.

Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile, and social justice. In April 2020, Dr. Morris became the inaugural Executive Director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, a philanthropic collaborative that supports a world in which all girls and young women of color are healthy, safe, thriving, and fully empowered to dream and shape their desired reality on their terms, while dismantling structural barriers created by racism, sexism, and ageism and other forms of oppression that prevent their full participation in our country’s future. 

Dr. Morris is an Executive Producer and co-writer of the documentary film currently airing on PBS, PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, which is based upon two of her books, Sing A Rhythm, Dance A Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls (The New Press, 2019) and Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016). She is also the author of Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century (The New Press, 2014), Too Beautiful for Words (MWM Books, 2012), and she worked with Kemba Smith on her book, Poster Child: The Kemba Smith Story (IBJ Book Publishing, 2011). Dr. Morris has written dozens of articles, book chapters, and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on research, policies, and practices associated with improving juvenile justice, educational, and socioeconomic conditions for girls and women of color. Her 2018 TED talk on how to stop the criminalization of Black girls in schools has received more than 1.7 million views and been translated into 18 languages.

Susan Reid is a Managing Director and Global Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Morgan Stanley. Susan works closely with the Firm’s leaders in the design of the Firm’s diversity and inclusion strategy with emphasis on hiring, retention, development, and advancement of key talent.

Susan has 20 years of human resource experience across a broad range of industries including financial services, telecommunications, and higher education. Susan joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 as a Human Resource Business Partner supporting the Investment Management division. Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Susan held a number of roles at various companies, including Human Resource Business Partner, and Head of Campus Recruiting and Diversity at Marsh and McLennan Companies; Head of Campus and Diversity Recruiting at Bell Atlantic; Head of Recruiting at RR Donnelley’s financial services division; and Head of Employment at New York University. Prior to transitioning to Human Resources, Susan was an Assistant Director in Student Services at New York University where she developed and led programs to retain and advance academically gifted students of color.

Susan serves on the boards of the Morgan Stanley Foundation and is a member of the Executive Leadership Council. Susan has a degree in Economics and Political Science from New York University and lives in Harlem, New York.