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good ideas A Budding Activist Student receives leadership award for equal opportunity advocacy
by Megan Roth
Photos courtesy of Maya Valcourt
A Budding Activist
Student receives leadership award for equal opportunity advocacy
One class and its open-ended research project inspired Dublin Jerome High School senior Maya Valcourt to make a big impact.
While taking an International Baccalaureate class on global politics, Valcourt used the course’s research project to investigate affirmative action. Inspired by that work, she set out to spread awareness and eventually fundraised more than $1,000 for the American Association for Access, Equity and Diversity, one of the United States’ leading advocates for affirmative action and equal opportunity programs.
Valcourt with the Emerging Leader Award she received for fundraising and raising awareness of affirmative action. Beyond advocating for affirmative action, Valcourt’s other leadership roles include work as a camp counselor for Stratford Ecological Center.
As a result, the AAAED honored Valcourt with its 2021 Emerging Leader Award. She joins past winners including Taylor Dumpson, American University’s first Black woman president of the student government, and Nicholas Hartlep, Ph.D., a professor at Berea College and author in the field of education studies.
Valcourt developed an interest in affirmative action while taking the global politics class, in which students are able to conduct a research project on a topic of their choice.
As a Haitian American, Valcourt says she’s always been interested in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives but the IB class provided an opportunity to seek more concrete knowledge on the topic.
“I didn’t know very much about (diversity, equity and inclusion), so I started researching and I stumbled upon affirmative action,” she says.
This piqued Valcourt’s interest and inspired her to conduct further research within the school to gauge what the student body’s understanding of affirmative action was.
“I found that only half of kids knew what affirmative action was,” she says. “I saw this as an opportunity for me to educate them.”
Valcourt conducted extensive independent research, including interviewing leaders of diversity-related programs at Ohio University and Ohio Wesleyan University.
Using the information she gathered, Valcourt compiled a news segment that was broadcast on the school announcements. She also conducted a letter writing
campaign that fundraised $1,125 for the AAAED.
“I didn’t tell (the AAAED) I was doing it or anything,” she says. “I just mailed them a check and about a month later they emailed me and were like, ‘Wow, that was amazing. Let’s talk.’”
The AAAED wanted to discuss honoring Valcourt as its 2021 Emerging Leader Award recipient.
“(The award) was kind of a surprise for me,” she says. “That made it even more special. I hadn’t been (raising money) for an award or anything, so it made me feel really seen that what I was doing was really making an impact.”
The AAAED’s Emerging Leader Award is given to someone who demonstrates leadership in their community, which Valcourt surely exhibited by raising awareness and money of her own volition.
“We were so touched by her activism and generosity,” says AAAED Executive Director Shirley J. Wilcher in a statement with the award announcement. “Maya is a role model for all of us.”
Valcourt’s fundraising effort isn’t her first independent initiative. Her interest in science compelled her to start a cardiovascular health education program with friends. What started as part of an IB diploma requirement expanded into the Your Heart Matters project where the group gave presentations about cardiovascular diseases and well-being to middle and elementary school students via Zoom. Valcourt and her group eventually placed second in a state-level competition organized by the Health Occupations Students of America.
She also serves as a leader through a camp counselor job at Stratford Ecological Center in Delaware where she educates kids about nature and the joys of exploring the world.
As a senior, Valcourt is looking ahead to her future and wants to ensure that DEI and affirmative action are incorporated into her life or career in some way. She plans on majoring in biology and business in college and is already thinking about ways she can increase affirmative action and diversity and inclusion in workplaces. www.in nityliving.org
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