Youth Highlight: Jason D., Health Education Youth Leader

Jason D. is a junior at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School in Roxbury, focusing his studies on engineering and math. He joined Sociedad Latina a few months after arriving from Minas Gerais, Brazil, and started in our Esclera program. He fondly recalls taking a tour of Harvard University where he connected with a Latino college mentor. Sociedad Latina’s Escalera program familiarized Jason with the process of applying and entering Boston-based colleges, and fueled his desire to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

For the past two years, Jason has been a Youth Leader in our Health Educators en Acción program, where he has been involved in leading sexual health workshops through our Cuídate (Take Care of Yourself) Initiative and helped cultivate our community garden. Youth Leaders carry out projects in Boston’s Mission Hill/Roxbury and Latino communities in the areas of civic engagement, health education, and arts & culture. From the outset, Jason took on a leadership role among his peers and has led workshops for his peers following our Cuídate healthy initiatives curriculum.

“Being with Sociedad Latina,” says Jason, “has boosted my self-confidence and public speaking abilities while also encouraging me to interact with a diverse group of people all who come from various places and have different stories.”

Jason recently started an SAT-Prep Mathematics Club in which he teaches high-level SAT math to his peers, with the ultimate goal of scoring highly on that portion of the exam for himself and the other students involved in the club. Jason excels in mathematics and other STEM fields and hopes to major in mechanical or electrical engineering at MIT.