Today I turn 30 years old and for the last few months I have been heavy in thought and reflection.With that I have to confess that I have been struggling trying to make since of what I have accomplished in the last 30 years, seeing the good and the bad, my shortcomings and accomplishments. With the past year I have had, I felt a strong calling to begin to share my journey with others for multiple reasons, with the hope of influencing a better world.

One of my reasons I felt I should share my journey is that I have had some unique accomplishments.In my last 9 years of my life I have found myself in a career/lifestyle of a community organizer. This career has opened me to an experience that has brought so much to how I see the world. Environmental and education justice has humbled me as I am solidarity with others in the struggle to create a healthy living space for my family, and access to a quality free education for my own family and my own community. I would never imagine how education organizing in Chicago would put me in spaces that I would have never imagined, yet the fight spoke to every part of who I wanted to become; courageous, fair, dedicated, and compassionate...Here I want to share the work I do and with it garner support sharing my own experiences and the experiences of those I work in solidarity with.

Another reason I am starting this blog is to use it as a venue to express my own values and principles and keep myself accountable to them. Sharing my journey, and where I am in my life with others allows me to seek council with others, and have a process to organize my own thoughts.

Lastly, a kind of a combination of the two mentioned already, is that I am a mother, a wife, a student, a believer, and I do all this as I am raising my children on Chicago's Southside in the West Englewood neighborhood. This past year I traveled the country to learn about how to empower communities and myself and I am hoping to use what I learned to transform more of the spaces in my own life, and showing and teaching my children and others the approaches I am trying to support transformation in our own lives.

I am so happy if you come to join me and I look forward to being able to use this as a platform and a listening session. God Bless.