Rahsaan Harris.

Associate Director

My parents raised me with the understanding that success can be measured in the number of people's lives you touch through your work, and they have modeled this throughout their lives. I have tried to live up to this legacy of service to others through my work with minority youth.

I have been working as an educator for the last five years to construct experiences for youth that give them exposure to different ways of thinking so they can go beyond the microcosms in which they live. I spent my first two years out of college in the Peace Corps as an environmental educator in Uruguay. It was there that I was able to help high school students start an organization that served Carmelo by organizing the town's monthly recycling efforts, printing informational pamphlets on recyclable materials and sponsoring community events. During the following two years I worked as a science teacher in the New York City public school system. As a teacher at Central Park East Secondary School, I taught genetics, supervised high school student interns at Mount Sinai Hospital and organized student visits to Princeton University so they could meet admissions officers and minority undergraduates on campus. Currently, I am the Associate Director of HarlemLive. (see resume)

Many people and experiences have influenced me to become a teacher. Travelling abroad, interacting with people of different backgrounds and having a wide range of other experiences has helped me to see that there is not just one way to live life. I believe that the only dreams that cannot be realized are those that people dare not to dream. Growing up, I was fortunate to be in an environment where caring adults, including my parents, guided and supported me as I set out to explore the larger world. Not everyone is as fortunate as I was but I know that there are other ways of providing underprivileged youth with learning opportunities. Acknowledging this reality, I have chosen to work at HarlemLive so that I could help provide a safe space for youth to view and shape the wider world.

Participating in HarlemLive activities has made me realize that it is a vital resource for the community. After a year of volunteering with here, I applied for and received a Community Fellowship from the Open Society Institute. This eighteen-month fellowship has allowed me to work full-time at HarlemLive in creating and implementing a plan for the organization's growth and sustainability.

It is a challenging task so wish us luck. If you want to chat, drop me a line at rharris@harlemlive.org.

God bless.

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