There have been many challenges and obstacles that I have faced in my life, and I'm still facing challenges and obstacles. When I was two and a half, my mom kicked my dad and everyone on his side of the family out of my life. When I was three, my mom started to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. Not long after she got married, she did the same thing to my stepbrother. The abuse and neglect lasted for about two and a half years. When I was five, my mom also began to abuse and neglect my brother, who was just a baby at the time. Child Protective Services knew about the abuse and neglect, but did nothing about it until it cost my stepbrother his life. I was five when my mom finally got arrested, and I'm still dealing with the pain and trauma from all that. As soon as my mom got arrested, me and my brother got put into the same foster home. However, after a couple of months, him and I got separated. He went to live with our grandma on our mom's side, and I came to live with my stepmom and my dad. At first, things were going well. However, as I got into my teenage years, things changed. My dad started calling me useless, worthless, and stupid, which didn't help the depression that I already had from my past. I was suicidal last year, but my stepmom and my dad took it as a joke and threatened to put me in a mental hospital. I would say my dad is mentally abusing me because of the things he says. He has told me that he never wanted me and that I'm a disgrace to this country because I love to listen to Spanish music. Those are most of the challenges and obstacles that I have faced so far in my life. The future that I envision for myself is being an International Social Worker, having kids, traveling all over the world, and possibly getting married. I want to be a Social Worker because of my past, and because it makes me sad to know how many kids and teenagers go through abuse and neglect from their biological parents, and end up with foster parents who don't treat them right. However, I want to travel the world, so I'm going to try to put my love for traveling and my love for helping people together, and I'm going to try to be an International Social Worker. My plan to make that happen is to go to Bloomsburg University for my Bachelor's Degree, and then I'm going to go to Grad school and get my Master's Degree. While I'm at Bloomsburg University, I'm going to double-major in Social Work and Spanish, and hopefully, I will become fluent in the language. I also plan on going to a few countries while in college to truly get a feel for other cultures and traditions. After I get my Master's Degree, I'm going to try volunteering with either the United Nations or the World Health Organization to kickstart my International Social Work career.

My plan for the future is to be an International Social Worker. I chose to be a Social Worker because I want to help people who are going through tough times. I have personal experience with abuse, neglect, and homicide. When I was two and a half years old, my biological mom started to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. She did the same things to my stepbrother and my brother. Child Protective Services knew about the abuse and neglect, but did nothing about it until she caused my stepbrother to become brain dead. She got arrested when I was five, and my stepbrother died when he was four. That's why I want to be a Social Worker. I want to help kids and teenagers who are going through abuse and neglect, just like I did. My other plans for the future include studying abroad for a whole academic year during my junior year, traveling the world, going to grad school, and having kids. If I do get to study abroad, then I'll want to go to South Africa since that's the perfect country that I could pick from to find internships for Social Workers. I also hope that I can become fluent in Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese because I want to live and work as a Social Worker throughout Latin America. I'm also thinking about trying to be a Social Worker in Africa and Southeast Asia. I want to be a Social Worker in those three regions because they are in desperate need of more Social Workers. My family won't help me pay for college, so I'm on my own. This scholarship will help me because if I win, then that will be $500 less that I have to pay out of pocket. I do plan to keep working while I'm in college, but that still won't be enough to pay for all four years out of pocket. The second way that this scholarship will help me is because it will get me one step closer to achieving my dream of being a Social Worker. The third way that this scholarship will help me is because I could use it to help me study abroad in my junior year. The last way this scholarship will help me is because I won't end up with as much student debt to pay back, and I won't have to take out as many loans, which will save me money. Those are the four reasons why I feel this scholarship could help me.

I have had a learning disability my whole life, and it has affected me in more ways than one. I have never been good at math, not only because I don't like it, but because of my learning disability. Trying to grasp the concepts in math has always been a struggle for me. I used to have a personal tutor in elementary school who would help me with math, and she's the reason I'm where I'm at with math. However, I'm still two years behind where I should be at. When I was in middle school, I got bullied a lot, and part of it was because of my learning disability. In middle school, my IEP teachers would take me out of my classes every time I had a test, and it was embarrassing for me because I felt stupid for not being able to stay in class like the rest of the students. In high school, I struggled the most with math, and I kept asking my teachers for help. However, even with their help, I still had a difficult time understanding some of the topics. My motivation for pursuing higher education is wanting to be a Social Worker. I always knew I wanted a career where I could help people, and I just decided last year that Social Work is the path that I want to go down. I'm going to get a Bachelor's Degree from Bloomsburg University, and then I'm hoping to go to grad school for a Master's Degree so I can eventually become an International Social Worker. The other reason why I'm motivated to pursue higher education is because nobody else in my family has graduated from college, and I want to do something that nobody in my family has ever done before. The last reason why I'm motivated to go to college is because I have been told that I wouldn't succeed in college and that I shouldn't go because of my learning disability, and I want to prove those people wrong. I feel that I'm a good candidate for this scholarship because my learning disability has caused a lot of obstacles in my life, and it's going to make it very difficult in college. The last reason why I feel that I'm a good candidate is because, despite my learning disabilities, I still have a lot of motivation and ambition to go to college and try to achieve my goal of being an International Social Worker.

I suffer from depression thanks to all the pain and trauma that my biological mom caused me when I was younger. She got arrested when I was five, and I came to live with my stepmom and my dad when I was six. At that point, I was only close with my stepmom, my grandma, my two aunts, and my cousin on my dad's side of the family. However, the older I got, the more my depression hit me and my relationship with my stepmom started to get rocky. She and I stopped doing everything together, my attitude got worse, and I just wanted to be left alone. My depression was the worst last year, and I became suicidal. My stepmom and my dad just thought that I was saying that for attention and they kept saying how they were going to put me in a mental hospital. However, I started talking to a mental health counselor instead. She did help me a little bit, and my relationship with my stepmom started to get better. This experience influenced me to become a Social Worker because I know what it's like to go through a lot of pain and trauma that causes depression and other mental health issues. I want to help other people, kids and teenagers specifically, who are going through abuse, neglect, or other things that could cause depression and other kinds of mental health problems. I always knew I wanted a career where I could help people, but I realized that I'm meant to be a Social Worker because of my past and my experience with mental health. The only positive experience I had with mental health was that it helped me to finally decide on what career I should pursue. One of the negative experiences I had with mental health was that I wanted to kill myself and just end all the pain and trauma I had been living with for years, and there are still days that I wonder why my mom killed my stepbrother and not me. The second negative experience I had with mental health was that it caused me and my stepmom to grow apart. The last negative experience that I had with mental health was that I started believing that nobody in my family wanted anything to do with me, and it was really difficult to think that. In conclusion, even though I've mostly had negative experiences with mental health, there was one good thing that came out of it, and that was me realizing that I want to be a Social Worker.

When I was 2 and a half, my mom kicked my dad and everyone on his side of the family out of my life. After that, she began to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. When I was 3, she got married and did the same thing to my stepbrother. My mom also physically abused and neglected my brother when he was born. The police and Child Protective Services knew about the abuse and neglect but did nothing about it. When I was 5, my mom was mad at my stepbrother for no reason, and she ended up hurting him very badly by causing him to have head trauma. The next night, my mom called 911, and she got arrested. My brother and I went into the same foster home for a few months, and then we got separated. I went to live with my stepmom and my dad, and my brother went to live with our grandma on our mom's side. When I was 6, my stepmom told me that my stepbrother had died, and it really broke my heart. After my mom got arrested, I was still trying to process everything that had happened. My dad had to get to know me again since my mom didn't let him anywhere near me, and I slowly met everyone else on my dad's side. My stepmom and my dad didn't want my mom's side to see me because they didn't want them to fill my head with lies. I didn't realize that I suffer from depression until I was 13, but I figured out pretty quickly that I suffer from anxiety. After my mom got arrested, I became very close to my grandma on my dad's side, and then a few years later, she got diagnosed with cancer. That was really hard for me because I didn't know what to do or how to help her. Unfortunately, she died when I was 13, and that's when my depression hit me. My depression was caused by everything my mom did, the bullying I went through in school, and my grandma dying. When I was 16, I was suicidal, but I realized that I couldn't go through with taking the easy way out. My experiences with loss and trauma have inspired me to enter the mental health field and be a Social Worker. Ever since I was 5, I knew I wanted a career where I could help people, but I didn't realize I wanted to be a Social Worker until I was 17. My experiences are the main reason why I want to be a Social Worker. I want to help other people, specifically kids and teenagers, who are going through similar things as I have been through. After my stepbrother died, I came to realize that the system failed, and I want to help change that. I don't want to see other kids dying because the police and Child Protective Services couldn't do their jobs correctly. I have always had a passion for law and helping people, and I want to combine both of those into a career where I know my experiences will be more than useful. I feel that I can make a difference in suicide prevention by sharing my story and my experiences with other people who are thinking about committing suicide. I feel like by telling them my story and how I'm taking all the bad things that happened to me and turning my experiences into something good, maybe they'll choose to do the same instead of taking the easy way out.

Yes, I was in the foster care system for a few months when I was younger. When I was 2 and a half, my mom kicked my dad and everyone on his side of the family out of my life. After that, she began to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. When she got married, she did the same thing to my stepbrother. My mom also physically abused and neglected my brother when he was born. When I was 5, my mom did something to seriously hurt my stepbrother, and he ended up having head trauma. Neither she nor her then-husband called 911 until the next night. After my mom got arrested, my brother and I ended up in the same foster home for a few months. After that, we got separated. I'm going to college to be a Social Worker. I know what it's like to be abused, neglected, and witness a homicide. I want to help other people who are going through very difficult times as I did. I love people, I'm very friendly, very caring, compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic, and I have a passion for helping people. I want to eventually become an International Social Worker and travel all around the world, specifically in Latin America, Africa, parts of Asia, and parts of the Middle East. However, I have to spend at least two years in the United States first, so I'm thinking about being either a Medical Social Worker or a Criminal Justice Social Worker. When my mom got arrested when I was 5, I knew right away that I wanted a career where I can help people. I thought about being a Cop, a Lawyer, a Paralegal, and a Nurse before. However, I decided to be a Social Worker because of what I've been through. I've been told by multiple people that the best Social Workers are the ones who have experience because it makes it easier to connect with other people who are going through that. The police and Child Protective Services knew about the abuse and neglect, but they didn't do anything until my mom caused my stepbrother to have head trauma. I still have a grudge against the police and Child Protective Services, but I want to help fix the system. I don't want to see other kids and teenagers get abused and neglected and the cops not do anything until it's too late. Those are the ways that I plan to make a positive impact on not only my community, but also the world.

When I was 2 and a half, my mom kicked my dad and everybody else on his side of the family out of my life. After that, she began to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. When I was 3, she got married and did the same thing to my stepbrother. My mom also physically abused and neglected my brother after he was born. The police and Child Protective Services knew about the abuse and neglect but did nothing to stop it. When I was 5, my mom was mad at my stepbrother for no reason, and she seriously hurt him enough to where he had head trauma, and I witnessed that. However, neither she nor her husband called 911 until the next night. The next night, the ambulance and the police showed up and arrested my mom. My brother and I went into the same foster home for a few months, but then we got separated. I went to live with my stepmom and my dad, and my brother went to live with our grandma on our mom's side. Even though my mom has been incarcerated for 13 years, I still feel like I have no justice for my stepbrother because I don't have the answers that I want. Since my mom got arrested, I knew that I wanted a career where I can help people who are going through tough times. I ultimately decided that I want to be a Criminal Justice Social Worker so that I can combine my passions for law and helping people into one career that I know I'll succeed at. Since I have been through abuse and neglect, and I witnessed a homicide, I figured that being a Social Worker is the perfect career for me since I can relate to so many other people. Also, I still have a huge grudge against the police and Child Protective Services for not doing something until it involved a 3-year-old boy getting head trauma, so I still feel like they failed me, my brother, and especially my stepbrother. That's another reason why I want to be a Social Worker. I want to help fix the system so that no more kids have to get seriously injured or killed before someone gets arrested. I have learned a few different things from that experience. The first thing I learned is that you never really know somebody until you notice that they behave so much differently out in public than they do behind closed doors. The second thing I learned is what's right and what's wrong. I knew from the time I was 5 that what happened to me, my brother and my stepbrother wasn't right. The last thing I learned was to just be who you are and don't follow in someone else's footsteps because it could also get you in trouble and possibly in prison.

I am currently taking Personal Finance as one of my electives, and I have learned so much already. I thought I wasn't going to like Personal Finance, but I was wrong. When my stepmom told me that I should take this class, I was very hesitant because I have never been good at understanding the concept of money, and I didn't know how much math would be involved. However, since starting the class back in January, I have developed a much better understanding of the concept of money, and I realized that there's not as much math involved as I thought. I enjoy this class, and I would take it again in college if I can. There are multiple reasons why students need to manage their finances. The first reason is that with managing their money, it's teaching the students how to be responsible with their finances. The second reason why it's important is so if they plan on going to college, then they will have money to pay for college instead of spending that money on things that they don't need. The last reason why students need to manage their finances is so they can follow the 50, 30, 20 rule. That rule says that you should be spending 50% of your total balance in your checking account on things that you need. It also says that you should be spending 30% of your total balance on things that you want. The last thing this rule says is that you should be spending 20% of your total balance on your savings. It's important for students to manage their finances so that they can go by this rule and live a more comfortable life while also doing things that they want to do, like traveling. Those are a few reasons why students need to manage their finances. There are a few things that I do to manage my finances well. The first thing I do is try to buy cheap things because then it won't affect my balance that much. The second thing I did was I made a budgeting chart with the 50, 30, 20 rule just so I can keep my finances under control. The third thing I do is just buy things that I need so that I can save more money for college. The last thing I did was open a savings account, and everytime I get paid, I put $10 in my savings account so I have enough money for when I'm ready to buy a house or my kids' education when I decide to have kids. Those are ways that I manage my finances well.

When I was 2 and a half years old, my mom kicked my dad and everyone on his side of the family out of my life. After that, she started to physically and emotionally abuse me, as well as neglect me. When she got married, she did the same things to my stepbrother, and then to my brother when he was born. When I was 5, my mom seriously hurt my stepbrother for no reason and caused him to have head trauma, and I was there to witness it. The next night, my mom finally got arrested after the police and Child Protective Services were investigating her for three years. My stepbrother went to the hospital, and my brother and I got put into the same foster home. A few months later, we got separated. I came to live with my stepmom and my dad, and he went to live with our grandma on our mom's side. A year later, my stepmom told me that my stepbrother died from his head trauma. I'm going to college this August, and I'm majoring in Social Work. I'm also hopefully going to be double-majoring in Criminal Justice. I want to be a Criminal Justice Social Worker so I can put my passion for law and helping people together in one career. I know what it's like to be abused and neglected, and my dream is to help other people who are going through the same thing that I went through. I'm hoping that after a few years of being a Social Worker in the United States, I can be an International Social Worker and travel to other countries to help those people. Being an International Social Worker caught my eye because there is so much poverty, war, and rape, among other things around the world, specifically in Latin America, Africa, parts of Asia, and parts of the Middle East. I want to help make the world a better place. After my mom got arrested, I realized that I wanted a career where I would be able to help people. At first, I thought about being a Cop. Then, I thought about being a Paralegal. After that, I thought about being a Lawyer. However, I eventually decided to be a Social Worker because I've experienced a lot of abuse and neglect in my life, and people told me that the best Social Workers are the ones who have experienced things like abuse, neglect, poverty, famine, and everything else. I feel like winning this scholarship can help me achieve my dream of being a Social Worker and helping people who either can't or don't know how to help themselves. I never had the support that I wish I had from my family, and I don't want other people to feel like they can't talk to someone and not be judged for it. That's what I'm hoping to do for not only my community, but also for the world.

I know what it's like to be hurt. When I was younger, my mom physically and emotionally abused me, my brother, and my stepbrother. She also neglected me and my brother. While that was going on, I had nobody to talk about anything. When I was five, my mom ended up causing my stepbrother to have head trauma, and he eventually died. When I was two and a half, she kicked my dad and everybody on his side of the family out of my life. For four years, I had nobody show me any empathy for what I was going through. It was really tough not having anybody who was there for me. However, all that changed when I was six. I came to live with my stepmom and my dad, and that's when I had people who started to care about me for the first time in my life. I never had any friends until I was in 5th grade, and that's when I made two friends, one of which I am still friends with. When I was 7th grade, I made a new friend who is not emotionally strong. She cries over pretty much everything. We instantly became friends, and I've been there for her ever since. Every time that she needed someone to talk to about anything, she knew she could come to me and I would listen. I give her help and advice about everything when she asks me to. While there are other ways I show empathy for people, that's just one example. I never had anybody show me empathy when I was younger, and that was really hard. I don't want other people thinking that they have nobody to talk to about things that are bothering them.