The Women of Color Speaker Series at Leominster High School is a grant-funded program sponsored by the Community Foundation of North Central Massachusetts that allows students to invite different women of color to speak to the students.
The series is currently being run by LHS Senior Princess Sasu. This is how she described the series, “Women of color share about their careers, their success stories, their backgrounds, to help inspire students to expand their knowledge and their opportunities about different careers they haven’t been exposed to.”
The series was created by Princess’s older sister Ivy, five years ago, when she was a junior at Leominster High. “She wrote a grant and worked really hard to make this a foundational thing at the school,” said Princess.
When Ivy Sasu began the series, she thought it was really important for women of color to share their experiences and share their stories to students because there’s not a lot of people that talk about their backgrounds, talk about where they come from, and how they got there. So, she thought it was really important to highlight that for students, and she’s heard speakers and found them very inspiring, so she thought she should bring that here.
When the series began, Princess was in eighth grade. As she entered high school, she began participating in the speaker series, helping Ivy and getting first-hand experience running the series. After Ivy graduated, there was a process that LHS Principal, Dr. Joshua Romano, and Ivy wanted to have to select the next person.
“Since I had been around her all the time while she was doing it, they thought it would be a good idea for me to be the next person to run it,” Princess said.
Then Princess gave us a look into the process of selecting a speaker as well.
With the use of online resources and confidence, she was able to contact new speakers. Sometimes she even received recommendations from a previous speaker, “I find different career fields, look at people’s posts, stuff like that. And I try to message them or find their email.”
She even created a website to represent the intent of the series, which you can visit at WOC Speaker Series.
The series has not only improved the school’s atmosphere, but has also improved Princess as a person, which is evident in her remarks.
“It’s much easier for me to start talking to people and engage in conversations because of the speaker series,” Princess said. “I can now do public speaking, and I feel less nervous when I do that.”
So far, Princess has invited 7 speakers to the school over the last three years. Some of the speakers include: Shalaya Morissette, the previous Chief of the Minority Business and Workforce Division in the U.S. Department of Energy; Dethra Gile, Chief Human Resources Officer at ExecuPrep (Talent and Performance Management Consulting), and most recently Sonali Anderson, founder of We Free Trees, who visited the school just this past October 23rd.
These women have made such an impact on not only their own audiences, but also on the students of Leominster High School who come to watch these influential women speak and tell their stories.
“The speaker series has opened my eyes up to so much, not only with school, but different career paths and life lessons that are so important! Whenever I go to a session, I always learn something new!” LHS Senior Chloe Bisceglia was quoted as saying on the Women of Color website.
The Speakers Series is still running and plans to run in the future, educating future classes. Although Princess isn’t sure who will be taking over once she graduates, she does plan to work with Dr. Romano to find someone who has the same passion for it as she and her sister shared.
If she had to give them any advice it would be to lean on those around you, “Talk to the people that are supporting you, be kind, honest, and just lead with confidence.”
In the future you will probably be able to find Princess doing something that’s empowering and teaching people of all ages, since that’s ultimately her goal for the future.
