Empower Latin Youth Scholarship

The most interesting part about me is my origin for sure, as it is an aspect I take great pride in. Although I was born in Colombia, I moved to the USA when I was four years old and became an American citizen in the 5th grade. Due to my Colombian origin, I feel as though it has made me very culturally diverse and accepting of different backgrounds and the celebrations and values that come with each specific culture. I also was raised without a father, and I feel as though with that and going through YMCA Leader’s Club, I have been able to be vulnerable and willing to show weakness, which has helped me grow and develop as a leader through the theory of a “servant leader”. Being from another country has also given me something to prove since Hispanics in most areas tend to underperform, has given me the drive to prove that Hispanics can be just as smart and hard-working as everyone else in an academic environment, which has been one of the biggest driving forces in my education. Another thing that’s special is my willingness to communicate and compromise, as well as my desire to form strong symbiotic bonds within a community, and this is because my mom had to rely on the help of strangers to be able to establish herself, which has opened my mind to the importance of communities and cooperation. My high school career has been characterized by balance, with me having to maintain community service, extracurricular clubs, my job, and my brief stint in youth sports while maintaining a 3.9 GPA. I have focused on balance, so I can find success in all aspects of my life. On top of the balance, I had to maintain in high school, winning this scholarship would help me achieve my goals by helping me to attend college without debt, which would be helpful since I’m the first member of my family to attend college in the USA, and therefore this gives me more possible opportunity than my family had in Colombia. I would like to attend college outside of the Tampa Bay area, and for me to be able to do this, I need to be able to adapt and fend for myself. Cartagena, my hometown in Colombia, has many problems in comparison to the infrastructure level we have in the USA. I want to study civil engineering, so I can find sustainable and feasible solutions to the infrastructure problems in cities and communities like Cartagena, helping them to achieve a better quality of life and progress. I’m aware these communities are all over the world, creating global opportunities for engineering and its applications. It would be awesome to be part of development projects around the world.