Once when I was sitting through a lecture on future careers, I heard, for the most part, pretty standard advice: get good grades, research potential colleges, and so on and so forth. But something stood out that stayed with me. I heard some variation on the phrase, “follow your passion.” I heard it not once, not twice, but eight times throughout that lecture.
The problem is, I’ve met so many students who have passion for a project, the drive to see it through, but no platform to enact it. That’s a large part of the reason why Naperville North High School junior Emilie Fann and I co-founded the nonprofit organization Asian Impact Movement. Our aim is to provide that platform.
Empowering students to make grassroots change through student-led initiatives—this is the heart of the Asian Impact Movement.
Our current major initiative addresses a largely unknown health disparity involving cancer. It’s common knowledge that heart disease is the leading cause of death, but here’s what most people don’t know: for Asians specifically, the leading cause of death is cancer, not heart disease.
That’s why AIM launched the Dear Mom and Dad Initiative. The essence of the initiative is to spread awareness of the threat cancer poses and to promote cancer screenings. We are encouraging students to take a personal approach by writing letters to their parents, urging them to get cancer screenings. They say that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, which is why early detection is so important when fighting cancer.
AIM’s top priority is always going to be the betterment of the community. Whether that manifests itself through cultural booths, volunteerism, or health advocacy just means that the sky’s the limit.
Find out more about our Asian Impact Movement at www.asian-impact.org.
