Members of LBCC’s Umoja club visited Stanford Middle School to help students of color identify with themselves and spread more awareness about black culture.
In Stanford Middle School a similar program by the same name, Umoja, is built to help the small population of students of color.
The program was started by Assistant Principal Nicole Reyes who reached out to her students to educate them on black awareness.
“Just bringing awareness to the African American culture other than what is already out there. For example, there is more to us than the rappers and the athletes and I want them to learn about that,” Reyes said.
The club is separated into two parts: during school hours, club-oriented activities are conducted. After school, tutoring is offered in the study club.
Reyes was given this idea by LBCC’s Umoja club president Elijah Harris who wanted to spread his resources and help out by tutoring students.
Reyes and Harris met while they planned a social awareness forum at Cerritos College with Reyes’s sorority, Delta Sigma Theta.
“I was talking to one of my sorority sisters about the planning art of it and they told me about the club and I said, ‘Hey, I need his contact information.’ So yeah, that’s kind of how I got connected with him. I read up about what he was doing, about the club and I told him what I’m trying to do and so, [the program] was born,” Reyes said.
Reyes keeps track of club activities while also being the club’s administrator. She builds her student’s knowledge on African American culture by giving them small research assignments on African American figures who are not as popular as the ones seen in textbooks.
“So, just giving them opportunities to dive a little deeper into black history other than what they learn in February which is really just Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcom X, because there’s more to us than just those historic public figures,” Reyes explained.
“Our African American students make up a very small percentage of our kids. We have 97 students of color or African American and we have over 1200 students on campus. One of the things I want to do is to include people that aren’t African American so they can learn about it.”
With the program, students are more open to embracing their culture as African Americans and ignoring the negativity that makes them ashamed of who they are.
The students enjoy the help they receive from the club and want to continue to learn about Black history in the club.
Aside from the students, Umoja members from LBCC enjoy their time helping the younger students with motivation and tutoring.
“Normally we do mentoring, we just started doing tutoring, it’s kind of like oh their homework is not done, we got to get homework done. Normally with mentoring, we plan to play games or just sit and talk about just being black in a community where there’s not many people who look like you. The goal is to understand that there are people who look like you and you’re not alone in school and even in situations where you are alone, you have to strive to be your best because you represent all black people as a whole,” said Sierra Kerr, Umoja member and volunteer.
Alongside Kerr, Umoja club member Shareif Shelton wants for the future generation to be allowed guidance and strength in ensuring a strong future.
“I volunteer because I feel that we should teach the youth because the youth are the future and if we don’t teach the youth then there’s no future. It’s already in mind that we come out here and help them because I want them to see that they have somebody that actually cares about them,” Shelton said.
“Like she said, they are not alone. And I understand that they have a future in front of them and sometimes it gets hard to understand that there’s a future in front of you if you don’t have anybody telling you that there’s a future in front of you. So it’s good to know that they have options, so they can use their minds to be anything they want to be and not just another number. And we should show them that they actually matter and have a purpose, they’re born with a purpose, that nobody is born without purpose.”
The Stanford Umoja club helps young minorities in giving the chance to learn about black history outside the books and gives them a sense of strength for who they are as young people of color.