Mentoring the Future
Photo by Kareem Ahmed
The seeds of future Radcliffe Moments are being sown here on campus. Harvard College students like Jana Amin ’25 and high school students like the recent graduates Tamar E. and Sybille D. are at the heart of a unique youth leadership development program.
Radcliffe’s Emerging Leaders Program pairs Harvard undergraduates with local high school students in a mentoring relationship, working with participants to expand limited notions of leadership and build critical skills to drive social change.
The Radcliffe Moment
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The seeds of future Radcliffe Moments are being sown here on campus. Harvard College students like Jana Amin ’25 and high school students like the recent graduates Tamar E. and Sybille D. are at the heart of a unique youth leadership development program.
Radcliffe’s Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) pairs Harvard undergraduates with local high school students in a mentoring relationship. Working with a dedicated Radcliffe team, participants expand limited notions of leadership and build critical skills to drive social change. The learning goes both ways. Amin—who has been a mentor for three years, studies the Middle East and anthropology, and is an advocate for gender parity—says it is electrifying watching mentees make the “leap between articulating a personal story and seeing its connection to a broader social issue.” Drawing on Radcliffe’s history and the collections in the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, mentees are encouraged to explore the lives of earlier change makers. Jana Amin ELP mentor Sybille D. ELP mentee Tamar E.
ELP mentee Tamar, who worked with Amin, targeted menstrual inequity for her project, organizing and leading a campaign to get free menstrual products to women throughout Greater Boston. Sybille, who developed a passion for social change working alongside Tamar and Amin, delved into the archives at the Schlesinger to create ELP learning materials that illustrate how the archives offer important lessons. Both Tamar and Sybille have built skills and confidence through this unique program. Tamar had been told she had leadership potential, but until coming to Radcliffe “no one ever really took the time … to guide me through the process of being a leader.” This fall, Tamar began her undergraduate studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Sybille at Howard University. Amin says that she’s eager to follow Tamar’s and Sybille’s growth as leaders.
Emerging Leaders Program students performing group exercises in Radcliffe Yard. Photos by Kevin Grady/Harvard Radcliffe Institute
The People
Jana Amin
- 2021–2025 ELP mentor, Radcliffe Institute
- Senior studying the Middle East and social anthropology, with a focus on the intersection of food and gender in the Middle East, Harvard College
- President, Society of Arab Students; intern, Harvard College Women’s Center; and tutor, Harvard College Writing Center
Tamar E.
- 2021–2022 ELP mentee, Radcliffe Institute
- First-year student, Johns Hopkins University
- Menstrual equity advocate
- 2022 Social Change Project Mini Grant recipient, Radcliffe Institute
Sybille D.
- 2021–2022 ELP mentee, Radcliffe Institute
- First-year student, Howard University
- 2022 and 2023 summer intern, Schlesinger Library